The Butterfly Effect
by Natsu
Summary: And that was how I changed the world. Slash. Style.
1. Chapter 1

I needed some light relief. El Dia de los Muertos is way heavy – it's butchering me... And I am busy and very writer's blocked also. Sigh.

WARNING: The style of this is a world away from what you're used to from me. I realise it may be kind of an annoying read. But, hey. Give it a try. What's the worst that could happen?

Ladies and Gentlemen, Kenny is your narrator. Please enjoy him and bring him back in one piece when you're through.

* * *

So, The Butterfly Effect - we all know this, right? we all have TVs and watch movies? – is an element of Chaos Theory (sounds awesome, I know: like physics times raving). It's an element of Chaos Theory which states that the tiniest action, say, the flap of a butterfly's wings, can have, like, a double-G-cup effect on the world.

Okay. I did the Wiki on this shit for you guys because, seriously, despite what they tell you, who doesn't trust Wikipedia way too much?

Yeah. I'm with you. Check it:

_The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial con__ditions resulting in a tornado._

The point is: my friends' lives were the precariously balanced little system and I butterflied the fuck out of them. I'm kind of proud of that.

Let me back up a little, though.

Originally I'm from this tragic little town in Colorado, South Park, which you will not have heard of because it's seriously in the back of beyond. It's like the groin of America and I don't mean that in a sexy way. Don't feel bad for not knowing it. I fucking wish I didn't know it and I was born there. I got out of that place as soon as my scrawny legs could carry me, back when I was eighteen. The story of my escape goes like this: My brother Kevin got kicked out of the state years back and hitched or whored or pimped his way cross-country to make it here to California. He got some cash together and ploughed the lot of it into opening a bar. He did alright. The bar's a cool place: kind of Indie and chilled out. But my brother? He has all the smarts of a watermelon and his people skills are pretty hit and miss. Mostly miss. So, to get the place running smoothly and to keep the entire staff from bailing, he needed a manager with a little more grey matter between the ears and the sense to keep his dick in his pants around the female members of staff, if you get what I'm saying. That's where I stepped in. My brother and I, at heart we're the same. It's in our blood. But I hide it better.

That bar is my baby. The place is flourishing. We're looking into opening another a few blocks over.

Where'd Kev get the capital? I dunno. Couldn't tell you. To be honest, I've never asked. I don't want to know. I want to be able to tell the truth when the police come knocking one day and I say, "Jesus, really? I swear I had no idea."

I truly dig my life out here. Cali and I have a love affair the likes of which the cold, cold heart of my hometown could never even imagine. She's sultry and sweet and breeds the world's hottest bodies. Out here, for the first time in my life, I'm not a nothing. I left all my crap behind me in that piss-poor excuse for a zip code and never looked back.

I don't miss it.

I never meant to lose touch with all my friends back home, but...somehow that shit just happens. You get me? If you've ever moved clear across states, you'll know where I'm coming from. Those guys, they were too much a part of something that I was trying hard to leave behind and I guess they got sacrificed to the cause. When I first moved out here, I thought about them a lot. In bed at night, in the fuzzy gap between awake and asleep I'd catch flashes of them skittering through my mind: a glossy movie-star wink here, an authoritative cackle there. And every now and then, a smooth, intelligent smirk against snow-white skin. But now? There just ain't enough space in my head any more. Trivial day-to-day stuff has taken the place of their memories.

You never have friends like the friends you grow up with. And once you leave them behind, that's the end of that. 'Course, if you don't leave them behind, you can't progress. You just fester and fester in the groin of America. It's a tough call to have to make and you're partly fucked either way. I know I made the right choice.

It's weird though, right? Because I did actually get to thinking about home and those guys on the day I got the invitation _before _I even got it. I'm such a psychic.

There was this kid I had to throw out of the bar that night. Scrawny kid. ID so fake I could have spotted it a mile off. Now, I'm not pretending that I was a stranger to fake IDs when I was his age. Younger than his age. But if you're gonna try to pull that shit, you damn well better do it right. There's no excuse for workmanship that poor. No excuse at all.

This kid was no hassle; he went quietly. I could see that I'd put the fear of God into him the second my eyes narrowed while staring between the smudgy image on the ID card and his terrified little real-life face. I didn't even need to call a bouncer. I just walked him to the exit, nice and calm, and held the door for him on his way out. I sent him on his way with the advice that next time he'd do well to cough up the extra ten dollars and get himself a decent fake. The kid was kind of nervy and skinny enough that a strong breeze would have knocked him on his ass. His hair was dyed black (bad job – roots showing) and cut all emo, but his_ face_. Jesus Christ, in the face he was so much like my friend Kyle that it was uncanny. Same haughty lips, same cut-glass cheekbones. Kyle and I had been good friends back in the day. Real good friends. I'd know his face anywhere. And this kid...if he had turned round and told me that his veins were full of Broflovski blood, I would have believed the fuck out of him.

It unnerves me, shit like that. Feels like life is trying to make a point.

The invitation had nothing to do with Kyle, though. At least, not directly. I came home at the crack of dawn, paper cup full of coffee tucked all delicate in the crook of my elbow and found the fancy envelope slumped in the box with the rest of my mail. It was good quality paper: ivory, thick and silky - rich like cream. It looked lost and ostracized in my ragtag bundle of convenience store promotion leaflets and Indonesian takeout menus. People like me got no business getting mail like that. But my name was printed there, clear as day in curly, curvy letters, right out of a fairy tale. I'm a curious fucker. You'll get to know that about me. I couldn't even wait to get inside the apartment before I opened the damn thing. Put my coffee in the mailbox, stood right there in the hall and tore it open. And I swear to God, I literally felt my mouth drop wide open, the way it happens in cartoons.

So, the card says:

_You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of  
Wendy Testaburger  
and  
Stanley Marsh  
on Tuesday afternoon  
June the 2__nd__  
at four o'clock  
South Park Church  
followed by a reception  
R.S.V.P._

'Course, I guess those names mean nothing to you, right? Yeah, I'm a retard. No shit, you aren't impressed.

Stan was like the unofficial leader of the crew I hung around with in school. He was a good guy. Real nice guy. He'd been with this girl, Wendy, basically since time began. Yep, she got hold of Stan young and sank her claws in deep. She's alright, though, Wendy. As girls go, you know? She's pretty easy to chat to and shit. She's hot, too. Most perfect tits I've ever seen and trust me, I've seen my fair share. No boast.

Her and Stan were a pretty good match. If Stan wasn't going to get gay with Kyle (and trust me, if you knew those guys the way I do, you'd know that really isn't as far-fetched as it sounds), then Wendy was always going to be the one for him.

But, shit. Marriage at twenty-two? That's bullcrap. There's no need for that unless you're wearing silver rings and desperate.

I was kind of outraged on Stan's behalf - so much so that I locked my coffee inside the mailbox and headed up to the apartment without it. Seriously. I left it there like a fucking spastic. And when I packed my bags and skipped town the next day, it just stayed there, mutating silently. Hell of a surprise to come home to three weeks later, I can tell you that.

There was an unfamiliar number to call at the bottom of the invitation. I ignored it and phoned my friend Stan direct because holy hell, this shit was huge.

An answering 'click' on the end of the line and then the sound of Stan's voice, distracted and harassed as if I'd interrupted him jerking it.

It must have been two years since we'd spoken. Our first conversation in all that time? It goes like this:

"Dude," I say, by way of greeting, "Marriage? For real? What the fuck's wrong with you?"

There's a static-y, long-distance pause as Stan puts two and two together. Then:

"Kenny," he states, incredulous and I can hear the wideness of his eyes.

"You know it, bitch."

"Oh my- What the _fuck_! Kenny!" he yelps, all puppy-like and I can't help but be a little thrilled by his reaction.

"Yeah, dude," I grin, "Don't piss yourself."

"I didn't think you'd even..."

"What?"

"No. I mean, Christ. How long's it been?"

"Couple a years."

"Yeah. Yeah. Couple of years," he echoes.

"Well, fuck. What do you expect? I get this thing telling me you're getting married. _Married_? Dude! What _is_ that?"

Stan's voice goes sheepish. I picture him rubbing at the back of his neck and kicking his toe against the floor.

"Yeah. I don't know. It just...It's just the right time, I guess."

"Sure?"

"Am I sure?"

"Yeah, man! Are you sure? You sure you're not letting her bully you?"

"Kenny..." Stan warns, but there's a smile in his voice, so I know he doesn't mean it.

"Seriously, dude!"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, man, I'm always serious. How's the super-best holding up anyway? He okay? Should I call him, lend him some moral support? I guess he's crying himself to sleep every night now, huh?" I splurt, still grinning like I'm brain-dead, and maybe that's the first flap of a butterfly's wings because Stan's voice twists off into the kind of strangled noise of scorn that I had no idea nice guys like Stan were even able to make.

Stan and Kyle. Christ. What to say about Stan and Kyle?

It's kind of too early. I guess I'll come back to that.

"What?" I ask, unnerved.

"No," Stan says, and the sound of his dry swallow is magnified over the phone line, "No. It's-"

"What?" I repeat, but,

"Dude. Are you coming, then, or not?" he dodges swiftly and I let him get away with it because I haven't spoken to the guy in two years and this could so easily turn awkward.

"To the wedding?"

"Yeah."

"Of course! Jesus, fucking- Of course, Stan! What the hell do you think I am?"

"Really?"

"What the shit, dude? Yes! I just said yes, didn't I? I wouldn't miss your wedding for the world."

And just like that I was distracted from the signs and nagging him for ceremony details like a goddamn girl. I might as well have begged to be allowed to put on a dress and scatter petals down the aisle, for Christ's sake. I'm such a gimp, sometimes, I swear it.

I booked a flight that very night, packed a case and left the next day, all the while trying to ignore the bits of my brain which were screaming blue murder at the mere thought of going back to my shithole town. Because, deep down, you know...I think maybe some part of me could sense it all coming.

It's cool for me to smoke in here. Right?

* * *

A/N: Eventual...Style. No questions. Multiple pairings to get there...but in the end this fic ain't going no place but Style City. I promise this time. ^^

I am very not happy with it. Very nearly didn't post it. Then thought...eh.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Well. After my dramatic 'I fear I am over South Park' moment, like, a day ago, here I am with another chapter. *shrug* Go figure.

*sigh* I fear I may get butchered for this, but...there is one other major pairing in this fic which precedes the Style and can't really go un-forewarned. And that pairing is KyCart. Why? Because it is oh-so-canon and, I think, totally hot. I'm sorry. It won't last. Just grit your teeth and get through it if it isn't your thing. I'm afraid that in my world...Stan and Kyle would never get together without someone else in between. That would just be too easy. ^^

* * *

I swear on my life, South Park is _literally _the coldest place on Earth. Even inside the fucking car, I could feel the icy air leaking in through the flimsy fabric of my Californian hoodie. Back when I was a kid, I used to think nothing of walking across the yard in a T-shirt and bare feet to pick up the mail. I guess now the years of California sun have made me soft.

"Dude, what the shit? Do you have the air-con on or what?" I muttered grumpily, tugging the cuffs of my sleeves down over my curled fists because I saw that documentary on the Discovery Channel about Crazy Edward Parry. You catch that shit? Man. Let me tell you, that frostbite stuff is no joke. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the crap that could drop off of you? Jesus Christ, man. That makes me shudder.

Cartman just sneered at me from the depths of his padded thermal parka and tugged smoothly on the wheel of the Land Rover, sliding the car easily round the next icy mountain curve. It takes some skills to pilot the roads round South Park. We've all got them. It was learn or die back when we were first driving. But now? Man, now if my cold tolerance has already shrivelled up and gone limp, who knows what else has left me.

'Course, Cartman snapped that worry up like a freaking Rottweiler and throttled the fuck out of me with it.

"Man up, Poor Boy. You've been gone, what? Like, three days? And already you can't handle a little snow? That is sad. Sad, sad, sad," Cartman jeered and I almost made use of my numb knuckles by pounding them straight into his arrogant face.

Cartman? I didn't mention him before? Dude. Are you in for a treat.

He's not a friend. At least, he ain't my friend. I mean, okay, we used to hang out, but the guy is a grade-A asshole. If I met him now, I wouldn't give him the time of day. But, you know how it is, though, with the people you've known for years. They're hard to shake. You grow accustomed to them. You get to that crappy point where they stop being friends and start being blood. Then you couldn't drop them even if you tried.

Hell. Cartman's not all bad, I guess, but let me tell you, there are sure as fuck people I would much rather be sealed in a moving vehicle with, you know what I mean?

The thing about Cartman, though, is that although he's a racist, sexist, bigoted, conniving piece of shit (and seriously, no joke, he honestly _is _all of those things), you can't help but respect him a little. He has a brain on him, that guy. And he always gets what he wants. You gotta respect that. He's like, impervious, you know? You can't really touch him. He's so good at warping stuff to his advantage, right? He has this power to render people around him utterly fucking dick-less. You don't have a leg to stand on with Cartman. Especially now that he's all grown up and butch as all get-out.

When we were kids, Cartman was the fattest kid in school. No, forget that; he was the fattest kid I'd ever _seen_. I didn't even know you could be that fat and still walk, no, fuck that, still _breathe_. When he was fat, at least when all else failed you could insult his weight. But, like I said, Cartman's a smart motherfucker. Sometime around grade seven, he worked out that actually, being overweight was a disadvantage. He set out to change that and didn't I say he always gets what he wants? Right. Next thing we know, we don't see him for a whole summer and when school starts up again in the fall, it's too late to stop it. The sharpest mind and blackest heart in South Park were suddenly encased in pounds and pounds of rock-solid, big-boned, hard-assed muscle. It was a fucking blow to us, man. I swear to God, I thought Kyle might fall to his knees and weep real tears when he saw it.

The day you realise that you might never win a fight against Eric Cartman again is a sad, sad day for you. Trust me. And Cartman and Kyle? They always had, like, a dangerous level of hate for each other. Sadistic, psychotic neo-Nazi plus self-righteous, high-strung Jew. It's never going to be a pretty equation, is it? You bet your shit it ain't.

But...No. Cartman isn't my friend. What was I doing in a car with him? That's a semi-long story. Check this shit:

I called Stan up again after I booked my flight, okay? To give him the details and hopefully scam him for a ride to save myself the cab fare. The days when I was too poor to buy a hot dog are long gone now, but old habits die hard, I guess. I think I'll forever be thrifty. Even though I do alright at the bar, I still live in an apartment below my budget and save every scrap of food in Tupperware, for Christ's sake.

The nearest airport to South Park is a long fucking way outside of town. They can't land nearer on account of the mountains and the fact that nobody in their right mind would want to actually get _in _to South Park. Only fools like me would do something as retarded as return to the place. Cab fare would have cost me a small fortune.

I didn't ask Stan outright because there's no class in that. You gotta have class, man. Instead, I kind of hinted at it without straight asking for it, which is a trick that I've pretty much mastered over the years. So, I non-asked Stan for a place to stay and an airport pickup and he says he can't do it himself because of work and because the spillover of Wendy's extended family are taking up all the bed and sofa space in their apartment. He and Wendy have been on a fucking air mattress for the past two nights, right? But I can stay with Kyle, he tells me. Which is cool because what's Kyle's is Stan's and Stan's to offer as he chooses. You know? They've always been like that. Or- Okay. What Stan actually said, was,

"You can stay with Kyle and- well. You can stay with Kyle,"

"Kyle and...?" I prompted, because, like, I thought I'd misheard.

"You can stay with Kyle," Stan repeated, and made every word louder and clearer this time so that there could be no mistakes.

Weird, right? But I didn't chase it, because the guy's doing me favours and who am I to question him? So, I'll be staying with 'Kyle and-', who can come get me at the airport because apparently 'Kyle and-' works freelance.

"Freelance as what?" I had to ask, because I was seriously that out of touch. Sad, I know. As a journalist, Stan tells me, and I can hear in his voice that he's as horrified by my ignorance as I am; he's thinking the exact same thing as me: "Holy hell, how the fuck did we let it get this far?"

Kyle and I used to be mega-tight in high school. We'd always been friends, but the two of us had this hardcore bromance affair after Stan hooked up with Wendy for serious at the end of middle school.

Kyle and Stan had been, like, the ultimate best friends since kindergarten. I mean...seriously. You guys have no idea. I never saw anything like it. It'd all be totally suspect, on account of Kyle being gay and all, if it wasn't for Wendy.

Yeah, my friend Kyle's gay. If that's a problem, I'll break your fucking faces, you get me?

Anyway, I think Kyle felt sort of lost to discover that he was no longer the most important person in Stan's life. You know? So what did he do? Settled for the next best thing, of course. Me.

Jesus Christ. That's the story of my life, man, I swear it. Everyone's next-best.

Wait, though. Fuck. This is like, the world's most severe detour, right here. The story was how I came to be trapped in a speeding vehicle with Eric shitting Cartman, not how Kyle and my friendship blossomed and grew wings. Let me stop ADD-ing all over the freaking place and get us back on track.

Yeah, the ADD? It's not diagnosed or nothing, but honestly? Makes sense, right? Makes sense.

All you need to know, the jist if you will, is that me and Kyle were thick as thieves. Or had been before I skipped town. Then suddenly, I don't know the first thing about him, which is kind of shit to realise.

So, I was at, like, a ribbed Trojan level of excitement about seeing him again. You know what I mean?

I stepped off my plane and right away, no foreplay, the cold whipped me all up my body like a wet gym towel. Hard. They had one of these shuttle bus things to take you to the terminal. Damn near fell down the staircase in my rush to get on it and huddle next to a heating vent. Made it to the terminal, battled through the milling crowds of spastics you never fail to get clogging up airports and emerged through the arrivals gate expecting to catch a glimpse of Kyle and his welcoming smile. Kyle's pretty much impossible to miss on account of having hair as red as a whore's lipstick. But shit on a stick, if he just ain't there.

What do I get instead? Eric fucking Cartman. All six-foot-plus of hulking, scowling, foot-tapping Eric Cartman.

That ain't a pretty thing to return home to, I tell you what. Especially if you've been expecting Kyle Broflovski.

So, I marched right up to him and said,

"Christ, dickhead. Have you offed him while I was on the plane? Don't think I won't call you on that shit."

And the bastard raised one smug eyebrow and he went, like,

"Ah. Kenny. Charming as ever, I see. Glad to know all the sunshine hasn't tainted you."

Which I ignored.

"Where's Kyle?" I pushed, because seriously, with Cartman, you can't let these things slide. More than once stuff I'd written off as impossible has ended up plastered all over the evening news and I've had to face the guilt that I'd looked the other way. So, like, I was all stern and kind of got in his face a bit – at least, as much as I could with a guy who's a head taller than me.

Cartman manhandled my shoulders and pushed me back again easy and laughed like he was pleased as pie.

"Goddamnit, Kenny. You're still a fucking headcase, aren't you? The Jew's at home. Working. Be glad I didn't just leave you here to sell sex for cab fare."

Then he turned on his heel, threw back, like, "Are you fucking coming, or what?" and it was follow him or stay standing in the arrivals lounge like a douche.

Next I know, I'm shivering in the front seat of Cartman's huge, gleaming, jet-black vehicle, and putting my life into his hands. It's a dumb place to find yourself, I'll be the first to admit.

The house we eventually pulled up at was big and swanky and in the part of town that I would probably have been arrested for so much as walking into as a kid. I couldn't even pretend that I thought it was Kyle's. I slammed the polished door of Cartman's obviously beloved car harder than I needed to and kind of jerked my head towards the monstrosity of a house.

"What the hell is this, man? You compensating?" I said.

Most likely, a comment like that will throw Cartman into a rage. But, as we made our way to the front door with the big glass panel and fancy-ass knocker, he miraculously didn't rise to it. He just smirked, held the front door open, went,

"After you, Kenny,"

and waved me through, like I was fucking royalty. The jackass.

Inside, the place was Cartman's through and through, from the shelves of history books to the decanter and crystal tumblers on the side table. The room Cartman led me into was a bedroom, the master. The rest of the room seemed to practically cower away from the mountainous king-sized bed holding court in the centre. And it all had Cartman stamped all over it.

Except for one thing. One massively crucial thing. With red hair. Who was sitting in the centre of the bed, hunched over a laptop and typing feverishly, wearing pyjama bottoms and no shirt.

That's when it hit me. Fucking Cartman was the 'and-'.

I know, right? It was a rude awakening.

"Eric, fuck off," Kyle snapped, without looking up. "I'm blatantly writing."

And as I was floundering beside him, Cartman went, "Fucking Christ. Did you even _move_ since I left you?" casual, you know, like he said crap like that to Kyle every day.

Kyle clenched one hand into his curls and frowned into the glow of the computer screen, as if merely trying to block out the annoying buzz of a mosquito, rather than Cartman's monstrous presence. Cartman doesn't take well to that attitude. His fist hit the doorframe by my shoulder so hard, I swear to God I nearly shit myself.

"Ey! Jew! I'm fucking _talking_ to you! I just drove all the way across the fucking mountains to collect your faggy Californian friend, so why don't you show me some goddamn respect!" he barked. Woof, woof.

Kyle did not even blink. He just kept typing and totally calm, he went,

"Dude, you can't say 'faggy' when you're a fag yourself, man."

"Actually, _fag_, that's precisely why I can say it," Cartman shot back, quick as a gunshot.

Right then, something crucial seemed to suddenly filter through Kyle's work trance. His fingers froze, suspended over the keys and he swivelled a stare in my direction. Our eyes met and we grinned big-ass matching grins.

I was like, "Dude," (because after years of growing up with Kev I am a freaking _master_ at hiding shock and awe) and held my hands out to either side of my body, "What the motherfuck is this?"

Kyle's grin just got brighter because, shit, man, everybody loves to see Kenny. Don't deny it. You know you feel it too.

"Kenny," Kyle returned, like it was Hanukah come early, and snapped shut the laptop with a decisive 'clunk'. Cartman made this dumb snort noise beside me as Kyle swung his legs over the side of the giant bed.

"Oh you are fucking shitting me," Cartman said, "You're closing that thing for this asswipe? You don't even shut it down when we're-" And I winced and cringed because, like, I'm not an idiot, and I seriously do not need what's obviously going on here to be spelled out to me in words. Thankfully, the press of Kyle's fingertips stopped the movement of Cartman's lips before they could say all the things I never want to hear or imagine, or...bleurgh.

My eyes were kind of stuck, though, open and gawping, like when you drive past a Victoria's Secret billboard – or wait, let's make that more appropriate: when you drive past a viciously gory car wreck – as Kyle's hand slid from Cartman's lips to his tree-trunk neck and then to his beasty collar bone. For a moment I had to witness my sane, level-headed friend Kyle looking up all doe-eyed, through his eyelashes, at a fucking _Nazi_, for Christ's sake. Then he said, really low and sincere,

"Thank you, Eric. I appreciate it." And he fucking _kissed_ Cartman – nothing sloppy, just nice and simple – on his jaw.

Eric hu- Shit. Goddamn, no way, I am not getting on that fucking bandwagon. No how. _Cartman_ huffed and looked away, but I could tell that he loved it. And just before I could start bawling Kyle out about how weird and creepy this all was and what kind of a trip was he _on_, I realised, with a sort of pride, that my boy Kyle had found a way to win fights with Cartman after all.

I mean, yeah, though. It's still fucking weird-ass.

Kyle folded his bare arms around me and squeezed hard and I laughed and choked and hugged him back, because I am _so_ his faggy Californian friend. With Kyle I'll always be totally shameless. I just love the guy, you know? We have big friend love, pure and true. Simple as.

I was afraid to ask him about the living arrangements I'd walked into. I could only assume that some kind of bondage was involved. Still, though:

"Dude, I gotta say," I told Kyle, "I'm kind of disturbed by finding you mostly not clothed and in Cartman's bed. Tell me this shit doesn't mean what I think it means."

Kyle kind of wrinkled his nose and squinted his eyes a little and said shiftily,

"Would you believe me if I said I'm being blackmailed into it?"

"Yeah," I shrugged, "I could buy that."

"Good," Kyle said with a grin, "That's the story I usually go with."

Cartman exploded next to us.

"The hell?! You tell people I blackmail you?" he squawked and Kyle turned to him and said, all matter-of-fact,

"Well, yeah. Come on Cartman. I can't let people know that I actually _choose _to sleep with you. My reputation would be shot to hell."

It was a joke, you know? But, for real, Cartman's face turned purple. It was all beginning to feel a little more normal, with them fighting. Because, thank fuck, I suddenly got that actually, nothing had changed so much. I'm way adaptable like that. So, I pushed away every image of the two of them actually sleeping together, because...dude. And I set about trying to diffuse the situation, which I was always good at.

This time, it didn't exactly go as planned.

I nudged Cartman in the side with my elbow and winced, because seriously, there was barely any resistance. The guy is solid as a rock and Kyle and I suddenly began to look stick-thin and fragile to my eyes.

"Dude!" I grinned at him, all sunny, and said, "You got Kyle, man. You know deep down we all wanted Kyle a little," because ego-stroking has always been the most effective Cartman management technique. Kyle snorted and looked at me wryly. Cartman scowled, but tossed his head kind of proudly and says,

"I was always gonna get Kyle."

Which could have been the end of it, right there. Except Kyle crossed his arms and looked at Cartman and went,

"Only after you lost weight, dude."

Damn.

"Ey! Spare me your prejudice, Jew!" Cartman yelled and I was suddenly trapped in the ever-decreasing space between them. Kyle's eyes were blazing as he leaned past me and snapped,

"Oh. No way. No fucking way are _you_ calling _me_ prejudiced, Hitler Junior."

Cartman's eyes were blazing right back and I could feel his breath all heavy and hot and hitching against the crown of my head and that's when it occurred to me that this wasn't a regular Kyle and Cartman fight that I was standing in the middle of. This was a hate-sex fight. And as trippy as that might have been to see, I was out.

...Kyle and _Stan_?

Dudes, for real, I am _getting _to it. Okay? Don't hassle me. I'm like, setting the _scene_, man. Do you want it right or do you want it fast, huh?

Jesus Christ, but you're pushy.

* * *

A/N: Abrupt end, I know. But it's actually weirdly hard to cut Kenny off. This seems to be the only way I can do it. /my lazy way of doing it.

This is my sloppy fic. The Kenny narration kind of covers a multitude of sins...or maybe it doesn't. Who knows! Please review. ^^


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I need more American swearwords. I am seriously struggling to swear creatively. Kenny would obviously not say 'twat' or 'wank' or 'bollocks' or other fine Brit-isms. But I don't know how to fill the gaping holes words like that leave in my vocabulary! Help.

Also. I KNOW I switch tenses in this. I usually HATE it when people do that want to scribble 'no, no, NO,' over the screen in red pen. But, I think that Kenny WOULD. I am aware of it. I'm not just being careless. Please don't think that it isn't intentional.

Phew. Now my inner grammar policewoman can rest easy.

* * *

But let me back up here a little to get you some perspective on how one of my best friends ended up getting boned on a regular basis by the guy who may just be the biggest ass-wipe this side of the Equator.

I got this story out of Kyle while I drove with him to the grocery store later that afternoon.

So, check this. Once upon a time in a high school far, far away, in the snowy wastes of Colorado, there lived a Jew and an anti-Semite whose hatred of one another burned hotter than the fires of hell. It was a hate the likes of which no-one else could fathom. Others would look on in awe as the two smartest kids in the grade would continually bomb out of classes, even in senior year, over nothing more than an argument about, like, the exact definition of 'pantheism' or some shit. Shit that nobody else even _understood_, let alone gave a fuck about arguing over. Their two closest friends despaired. The principal tore out the little hair he had left and prayed for the day when he would see the back of them. But, lo and behold, when that day did come, when test scores were opened and college beckoned, the two loathed enemies found themselves sitting in the same lecture theatre, in the same state, taking exactly the same celebrated course. They were Fate's biggest practical joke. It seemed to both of them that they would destroy one another. It was, Kyle felt, like living in a Marvel comic.

But there was one spanner that Fate had thrown into the works which neither of them had quite expected, a spanner which reacted explosively with hatred. You see, the anti-Semite had been graced with broad, built-for-strength shoulders that any athlete would have killed for and a bruising intensity about his person which caused others to cower. And the Jew was all slender muscle and perfect pale skin, with a golden light in his eyes that made people swoon at his feet. Attraction was not something that either of them had bet on.

"It just reached a point where the next step either had to be sex or murder," Kyle told me as his hands slid gracefully around the wheel of the Land Rover. He piloted Cartman's sleek back vehicle as smoothly as he handled the man himself. "I guess," he continued, and smirked at me sideways, "we both just value our lives too much."

So that was how it happened. That was how Cartman and Kyle had embarked upon this weird Twilight Zone existence, in which they both still hated just as hard but now worked it out through their dicks.

Sexy image, right? So sexy I might just vom all over myself and you guys right here, right now. Jesus Christ but I might.

But whatever, guys. That's the story. Swear down.

So, Stan's bachelor party, right? It happens the second night I'm back in South Park. After spending the day participating in Kyle and Cartman's seriously fucked up version of domesticity (and for real, when that's coming from a child of a home as broken as mine, you know that it honest-to-God ain't good) I was basically the most ready for a drink and a lap dance than I had ever been in my life.

I spent the entire cab ride to the bar talking shop with the cab driver, who used to tend bar back in his youth. He was a cool guy, but mostly I was just doing it to distance myself from the argument going on in the back seat over who had shirked the responsibility of calling the gas company to sort out some shit with a new boiler. I mean, really, it totally made me long for the days when it had all been about the anti-Semitism and self-righteousness. At least those things were kind of worth fighting over.

But we get to the bar and Kyle slams the cab door and storms off without paying the driver and I almost have to do it until Cartman's pride gets the better of him and he doubles back to bail me out, muttering,

"Easy, poor-boy. Don't spazz. I won't force you to give up your beer money. You hold on to those dollar bills to cram in some whore's thong," or some sexist shit like that.

So we follow Kyle into the bar and Stan's already there, holding court over a crowd of familiar faces, with a beer in one hand and this big-ass pearly grin on his face. I'm way glad to see him because Stan was always what held us all together, you get me? If there's anyone that can restore a whacked out friendship balance, it's saintly Stanley Marsh.

Okay? Or so I _thought_. Right? Turns out...

Or, wait. Let me lay it out:

So Kyle hugs Stan, all delicate-like with one arm, while Cartman sizzles grumpily in the background.

"You smell like Abercrombie," Kyle says, as he pulls back from the hug. "Like brand new Abercrombie. You know. That store smell. The one you can smell all down the block." Then, he runs appreciative fingers over one of Stan's shirt-covered shoulders, as though touching Stan like that is totally allowed.

Dude. You know? What is that? Hell, I mean, I'm no saint but even I'd have the sense not to paw all over other guys right under my boyfriend's nose. Cartman's an angry motherfucker at the best of times. He don't need anybody giving him extra reasons to be pissed.

And he was pissed. I know. I looked at him to check.

But Stan's staring at Kyle like nobody else in the room exists and I'm thinking, Jesus, the dude's getting married and they're still in _this_ fucking place?

And Stan looks at Kyle and he goes,

"Dude. For real? I mean yeah, this is a new shirt, but, come on. How gay _are _you?"

Which I guess breaks the spell, because Kyle calls Stan a dick and insults his manhood all in the same breath and Stan laughs and turns to greet his other important guest: Me.

Are you kind of starting to see what I mean about those two, though?

Yeah. It's early, huh? Don't worry. There's time. Kenny'll have you up to speed before the day is out.

So, Stan notices me and his smile splits his face clear in half. He holds his arms out from his body and goes,

"Kenny," drawing out the syllables through his grin in a way that says, 'yeah we're both guys, we love each other, and fuck you, we're totally comfortable with that.'

I thump my body hard against Stan's and slap my arms around his back, because straight guy love is fine only if you throw in a little caveman shit to beef it up.

"Dude," I say, like, all nonchalant, but really I'm beaming up a storm.

"We missed you," Stan says, leading me towards a table with one arm around my shoulders, the entourage of our other friends trailing behind him.

"Bullshit you did," I say and Stan's eyes go wide and earnest.

"Shut up, dude. I'm serious. We missed you," he swears. I know I'm glowing and it's getting harder to hide. Still, though, I shrug my shoulders beneath his arm.

"Well alright," I shrug, "In that case, baby, I missed you too." I nudge my hip into Stan's so that he laughs and eases off, manhandling me down into a seat instead. Someone slides a golden bottle of Corona in front of me with a fat chunk of lime wedged into its neck and I could just melt, right there, thick in the bosom of home comfort.

Don't get me wrong; Colorado sucks ass. South Park is like dead space on the map to me. It's a blot on the country's surface. But, man, these guys. These guys are good people. They're _my_ people. And there ain't no amount of sunshine or wheat grass or platinum hair that can ever stop that being a fact.

"You look well, dude," Stan says sincerely, only sparing Kyle the most fleeting of glances as he slides into the seat beside him. And in return, all I can do is speak the truth.

"I am, man. I am," I say.

Touching, right?

Okay. So, an hour later, while Stan's doing the gracious host thing of greeting people and chugging down drink after drink after drink, I'm sat at a table with Kyle and Cartman, a forest of empty glasses and a brand spanking new argument. Things have degenerated to a whole new level of base. Check this shit. It goes like this:

"I'm bigger than you. I will rape you." Cartman. Fucking obviously.

Kyle throws his head back and laughs like that's actually funny, then leans closer to Cartman and says, half-joking,

"You threaten that one more time and I will call the cops, cry down the phone and tell them you're serious about it. You know I fake good tears."

"Alright, Jew. Alright," Cartman says slowly. "I'll see you your rape allegation and raise you a...telling your mother you're sleeping with me."

"She'd never believe you."

"Want to risk it?"

I swig my beer, because this is almost getting to be like watching reality TV. There's a long pause while Kyle weighs things up, before his lips pull into a pout and Cartman grins triumphantly.

"You know what I need to hear, Kyle," he says. And Kyle goes,

"I don't even remember what this fight's about. What am I supposed to say?"

"'Eric, you are my God' will generally suffice. It covers all sins."

There's another pause. And then,

"Double whiskey and a blowjob out back."

"Done."

I nearly spit out my drink.

"Careful Kenny," Cartman says, clapping me on the shoulder as he gets to his feet, "every drop of that stuff's worth money."

I don't reply because I'm too busy shuddering and anyway, Cartman's already walking away, probably to wait for Kyle somewhere shadowy and porn-ish.

Kyle turns to me, looking kind of apologetic. As he damn well should.

"Kenny. I..."

"Need to go suck Cartman's balls dry. I get it."

"Please don't judge me," he begs. And because it's Kyle, and because seriously, sharing a bed with Cartman has got to be punishment enough, I lie,

"I don't. Who the fuck could have guessed he'd grow up to be a stud?"

Kyle sighs.

"I know. I feel like life has totally screwed me over."

I don't think it happened. At least, I see Cartman talking to Token like, five minutes later, and unless Kyle works really fast, I'm pretty sure that nothing actually went down. Excuse the pun.

I guess that part wasn't really important. You probably didn't need to know, huh? But, hell, I now have that image fucking _carved_ into my brain. Don't see no reason why I shouldn't take you all down with me.

But you want to know about Stan and Kyle, right? I mean, those guys are the real story here. Okay. This is how I worked that crap out:

A while later, I see Stan and Kyle sitting together in a booth way back from the bar. I decide to crash their moment and deposit the increasingly sluggish weight of my half-drunk body down beside Kyle.

"So," I say with a grin, "Cartman looks distracted. Wanna make out?"

Kyle snorts with laughter and sets his beer down carefully on the table.

"He'd sense it happening and he would rip out your throat," he tells me. I hit him with my best Hollywood wink.

"For me it'd probably be worth it," I coax. Kyle presses slender fingers protectively over his jugular and looks at me warningly.

"Yeah. Well I'm pretty attached to mine, thanks. Mine won't grow back."

I see Stan shift a little out of the corner of my eye but don't really register the point of it. I barrel onwards, like the douche bag I am.

"Come on, dude," I say, inclining my head for emphasis "Seriously, though. You can do better than Cartman."

"That's not really the point, is it?" Kyle retorts, lightening fast. "It's more a case of me _wanting_ to do him. Which I do."

It's a smart-ass answer, so I do what I normally do it that situation and get smart in return.

"Yeah, fucking loudly, man," I complain, deadpan. "What's up with that? You can't keep the noise down for one night while I'm sleeping across the hall?"

I'm joking, but Stan drags one hand roughly over his face and I hear him say something like, "Man, fuck this," at about the same time as I go, "Jokes," to show that I don't mean nothing by it. But Stan's already on his feet and leaving the table like we've pissed him off and he ignores me as I call after him,

"Dude! _Jokes_, I said."

Unnecessary, right? I mean, Stan's my boy, but for real, sometimes I swear he is such a woman that it makes Kyle's gay ass look fucking butch, man.

I apologise to Kyle, because, you know? Kyle just shakes his head. Swigs his beer.

"Forget it," he mutters. "He's like this, man. He's always like this."

I sit there with Kyle and I feel like maybe I've put my foot in something. Music pounds around us. Kyle sighs, pushes a hand into his hair and looks at me wearily.

"He thinks Cartman and I have an _unhealthy..._that's his word...an _unhealthy_ relationship," Kyle says. I look at him and raise one eyebrow.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know. I don't know what it means. But it's fucking killing us, Kenny. Stan and I. Our friendship is getting shot to shit," Kyle says. "I can't keep having the same pointless argument with him every time we see each other," he says. "I'm sick of trying to convince him that my relationship is..._healthy_. I mean, what _is_ that? And coming from him?" Kyle turns his gaze to Stan, who is being enthusiastically embraced by a Butters fizzing with congratulations. "I mean, have you seen this shit? It's so..."

"What?"

"It's like...a paper cut-out of..._nothing," _Kyle says and gulps his beer until he looks glazed. I thumb the neck of my own beer bottle and consider joining him.

"I just don't get what he means by 'healthy'," I mutter.

"No. Well, I mean, I have a hunch. I can fucking read between the lines, you know? He means all kinds of things by it."

I nod.

"Like stuff out of horror porn," I supply.

"But Stan doesn't know what goes on behind closed doors. Does he?" Kyle argues. "How would he? Yet he presumes to know exactly."

"Let me tell you something, Kenny," he says, "Nobody gets us. Me and Cartman. Nobody does. But this thing we have just works for us right now. And I don't give a shit what anybody else thinks. Because the only people involved are me and him. And as long as we're both fine with how things are, then that's all that matters. It's not anybody else's business what we do. Not Stan's. Not fucking _Butters's_. Not anybody's."

We're quiet for a moment before I tell him,

"It does matter what Stan thinks, though, dude. To you."

And Kyle goes,

"It doesn't. It shouldn't."

"But it does."

"It shouldn't."

That's just the start. Towards the end of the night, I step outside for a smoke and catch them standing out there together. They don't see me.

Kyle's wrapped in a university hooded sweatshirt. It has 'Journalism Soc' printed on it. Stan's swaying a little on his feet, obviously drunk off his face. He smacks Kyle's chest with the back of one hand, knuckles knocking against the University logo.

"What is this shit, man?" he says and Kyle steps back from the blow and grins like he loved it.

"So? You wear your uni shirt all the time."

"Yeah. From football."

"Right."

"Not _editing_," Stan stresses, widening his eyes to really hammer it home. "Take it off. I won't have that geek crap at my party."

I expect Kyle to tell Stan to go fuck himself. I expect Kyle to dig his heels in. I expect Kyle to start a goddamn riot, rather than comply, when Stan is obviously being drunk and brattish. That's what my friend Kyle – the Kyle I know – that's what he would do. But this sleeping-with-the-enemy Kyle...

This Kyle is different, man.

So he looks at Stan kind of thoughtful and dark and then he pulls down the zip of the hoodie and steps forwards – slow – until they're can't-breathe-close. And Kyle twists his shoulders, fluid, like a snake, shrugging the fabric away as if it's the last layer he's wearing. It's almost convincing, that movement. It would be easy to disregard the standard Colorado layering still blocking Kyle's skin from the cold. The long-sleeved T-shirt. The fine-knit sweater. Cartman's scarf. You'd be forgiven for not noticing them; Kyle's lips part as if he's naked.

I can see that Stan's hooked. It's the moment that it really fucking _clicks_ for me that there's something going on here that's bigger than I understand. There's a whole different story being steadily scribbled line by line beneath the disguise of 'Stan marries Wendy while Kyle fucks Cartman'. And now that I've spotted it, I can't look away.

Kyle's hands work behind his back to free his wrists from thick sleeves. When he's done, he holds up the hoodie, reaches around Stan with both arms and drapes the fabric across Stan's back like a cloak, slapping his palms down hard atop Stan's shoulders as if sealing the garment in place.

"Whatever you say, dude," Kyle says, but his tone is spiteful, like the words are code for something else. Whatever it is, Stan gets it and as Kyle turns away, Stan lunges after him, catching his wrist and trying to pull him back.

"Kyle," he say and something in that word must trip a spazz switch in Kyle's brain because Kyle wrenches his arm away like Stan's touch has burned through his clothes and shoves Stan hard, leaving him to stumble backwards with Kyle's hoodie falling crumpled at his heels.

"What?" Kyle yells into Stan's face, throwing his hands up in an inflammatory gesture. "_What?"_

Stan swallows and glares at Kyle like Kyle has betrayed him in the worst possible way. He doesn't say a fucking word. So Kyle says, quietly,

"Yeah. I didn't think so."

And then he turns on his heel and walks away. And that's what I saw. Swear down, you guys.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I kind of underestimated how much people would enjoy this story. I seriously misjudge my audience. It's a scruffy story and I didn't think people would particularly miss it.

Er...wrong.

I basically don't have any time to write any more. If I write, it means that I'm not doing my job properly, which sort of isn't an option. Obviously. But...I have some time off at the moment so...voila.

Though, I have to admit, it's pretty rushed and I think I might have slipped quite far out of the American voice and into London rude-boy slang. Innit. Also, nothing happens in this chapter. Apologies for that.

For The Brat Prince, my fandom super-best, who I have been neglecting horribly. ^^

* * *

The weirdest part of that night, though, was the cab ride home alone with Cartman.

Kyle skipped out and disappeared into the cold and we didn't see him for the rest of the evening. And Cartman seemed so unconcerned by it that I could, like, only assume that this was the usual sort of shit to go down of an evening now.

Stan? Man. Stan, he went from sort of drunk to practically paralytic in the space of like twenty minutes. When I said bye to him, he was slumped in a booth with the arms of Kyle's hoodie knotted limp around his neck, like a ready noose.

It was fucking senior year all over again. Swear down, I felt like I'd slipped into a time warp. Stan's always been the worst of us for drinking. Me - I have a stomach for it. I mean, we didn't always have the good meat or the fancy toilet paper when I was growing up, but cheap booze? Man, when it came to liquor, our cupboards were never bare. And Kyle and Cartman, those guys were way self-aware. Still are. They both have this precise, overbearing crap going on. You gotta be sloppy to really lose your shit through drink. You have to let go enough for it to take you. It's a talent. And man, did Stan have it from the word 'go'.

Point I'm making is that Stan always had a rep for that shit. Prince Charming by day, raving waster by night. That was the Stan I knew and loved from high school. And if Wendy had managed to train that out of him in the time I'd been away, Stan relapsed like woah on his way up to the wedding. For real. The bachelor party wasn't even that bad. It was just the start. Like, wait til I tell you guys.

But that night, that night someone drove Stan home safe – maybe Clyde or someone – and I shared a romantic cab ride with Cartman.

Awkward as fuck, right? I know it.

So we're sat at either ends of the seat of the cab and there's this weird context there because obviously, we're heading home one man down. We both know it. Kyle's absence is like this glaring, flashing, unavoidable _thing,_ but neither of us _says_ anything about it. Cartman, man, he just sits there glaring and seething. And me, I almost stay silent, but the curiosity is damn near eating away at my insides and in the end, I just can't keep it down.

"So, dude," I say eventually, because you should never be afraid to say what's on your mind. If you can't do that, then you ain't got no hope of ever being anything to anybody.

"So, dude," I say, "Like, what's the deal with Kyle? You just gonna leave him to the wolves, or what?"

There's a creak of fake-leather upholstery as Cartman turns to look at me through the dark of the cab's interior. His face is all still and shadowed and I can just see the thick fingers of one huge hand flex against his thigh in the sudden patch of dim light thrown by a set of passing headlights. And Cartman goes, totally calm,

"Kenny. What makes you think that's a smart question to ask me right now?"

Which, you know what? It just brings the image to my mind of that guy in 'Pulp Fiction' getting his brains splattered all over the insides of a car and like, right then? It totally seems like a realistic possibility. 'Don't goad Cartman, dude,' my brain clamours at me, 'I am way explodable.'

So we rode home the rest of the way in silence. Cartman paid the driver in silence, led me up to the house and locked the door behind us. In silence. Then he fucks off to bed and I'm left there, in the silence, thinking about how awesome it _isn't_ to be back home again.

But, yeah.

So, I don't get any closer to really understanding this weird kind of balance that Kyle and Cartman have in their relationship. You know? Where one of them can just up and vanish and that's, like, not even worthy of comment from the other. I don't really get it until the next evening, when Kyle's turned up again and Cartman's home from work and I'm trying my hardest not to get too involved in any of it in case I somehow can't get out again and end up trapped back in South Park, snowed in under the sheer weight of their dysfunction.

See, The thing you have to know about those guys is that, actually, they've always been so evenly matched that they almost like, cancel out. I mean, Kyle's a freaking genius, man. You know? The guy has skills. But Cartman has always been good at bullshitting everything that Kyle was actually good at. And-

Wait. Fuck. I have totally missed something out. I know I was just, like, in the middle of telling you that but...

This is sort of important, though, so I should probably fill you in before we get way further with that shit. Because before I even see Cartman again, Stan turns up. And there's...well. There's something which kind of goes down with him and Kyle.

Hell. I'm such a fuckup. I'm making the biggest mess of this. Like, for serious, you should have gotten Wendy to tell you this shit. I mean, sure she'd be less impartial, but at least she might get it right. Let's back way up and take it slow:

I woke up the next morning in the spare room with way less of a hangover than I was expecting to have after a bachelor party. Man, I mean, after my brother Kev's stag night, I basically didn't wake up for, like, two days at all.

So, I'm kind of spritely when I come out of the guest room and pad over the lush carpets to the kitchen to hook myself up with a cup of coffee. And I'm even more spritely when I discover Kyle home and whole, with Cartman already out at the office.

"Yo. Have a seat. I'll make you some eggs," Kyle tells me, using his foot to push one tall stool out from under the breakfast bar. He's already typing at breakneck speed, but he glances up to spare me a smile over the back of his laptop as I sit down.

"You work all the time now? Or what?" I ask him, reaching for the top sheet of a pile of typed pages, which are covered in scrawls of red pen. It's some kind of lame-ass report about a construction project. Nothing to shoot your load over.

"Mostly," Kyle says, "When I'm on deadline."

"Bet monster boyfriend loves that: you ignoring him." I say. Toss the paper back on the pile, only to have Kyle reach out to straighten it in his same old anal way.

"You can't really ignore Cartman," he smirks. Then, he huffs a sigh, closes the laptop and stares at me. "Can't ignore you, either, dickhead. What kind of eggs do you want?"

We eat breakfast together, right? Normally, I work nights, so I don't so much as eat breakfast, let alone eat it with someone. So, it's kind of sweet and chilled and so homely that I feel enough at ease to ask Kyle about where he went after the party before I can ever consider whether it's a good idea or not.

"Stayed at my parents," he mutters, in between mouthfuls and I shrug at him and go,

"Don't you have, like, a home?"

Kyle stares at me like I'm way retarded and kind of glances around him at the kitchen in a way that says 'Duh.'

"But, like a _home_ home," I press, because it sort of bothers me, you know? The weirdness of it all. "I mean, come on, dude," I say, "This is Cartman's place. You're just an accessory here, right? Like...that ugly lamp, man. You're totally that lamp."

And Kyle looks at the lamp on the side table and he goes,

"I'm not fucking deformed."

Which was so obviously not even what I meant that I know he's trying to divert me from the real issue.

"Seriously, dude," I say, then, "Where's _your_ shit at? Where's _your_ life? Where's Kyle?"

"Right here."

"You don't belong here, though," I snap back at him and I can see in his eyes that I'm getting myself kind of worked up and it's freaking him out a little. I would have stopped there. Like, I would have done, only the doorbell rings and I don't get a chance to push it any further anyway, because Stan's on the doorstep and with Stan around, no-one else will ever be a real contender for Kyle's attention.

They're not really awkward or anything. Or, if they are, it's for all of, like, a second, when Kyle first opens the door. But then Stan holds Kyle's folded hoodie out with a lop-sided smile and he says,

"Dude, this thing's been missing you all night, Kyle. Apparently I'm just not good enough for it. It needs a real man to make it happy."

"No shit it wasn't happy with you, then," Kyle grumbles back, but it's through a barely-tamed grin and for real, we can all see that he's really just flat-out-happy to have Stan in his sight again. All at once, it's like nothing weird ever happened between them.

See y'all, the thing you have to get about those guys is that without each other, they're really kind of a mess. Like, Stan and Kyle, man, they're my brethren. My blood. They're awesome people, right? But, you take them apart from one another and...to be honest, they're both kind of lame.

Or. Okay, no. That ain't fair. I don't mean it like that.

What I mean is...Stan and Kyle. They're awesome. But they're such awesome people _because_ of each other. You get me? Like, the reason they are both so secure in themselves and chill and confident is that they have grown up safe in the certainty of one another. So, Kyle, right? He can be as militant and as passionate and as much of a self-righteous asshole as he likes, because he knows that Stan will always have his back and be his friend regardless. And vice versa. They make each other.

And if you keep them apart too long - like back when Stan was with Wendy all the time in senior year, remember I said? – like back then, you start to see the withdrawal symptoms kick in. They get like drug addicts clawing at themselves and writhing on the ground and lashing out at the rest of us. They lose themselves a little. You see that movie 'Trainspotting'? Yeah. Fucked up shit, man. Fucked up shit.

And that? That is Stan and Kyle without each other.

I make it sound way dramatic. But, for serious, you guys, these two are all _over_ the drama. I tell you. There's some drama in this town? You can bet that my friends are at the root of it.

Okay, though. That day:

The three of us end up sat in front of some lame-ass football game between teams that aren't even worth watching. So, we're watching this game, only not really, on account of how hard it sucks, and we're still on the subject of real men: what makes one and why this guy we know, Butters, is totally not one.

Butters? Yeah, what a name, huh? It's a shame for him, man. Forget him for now, though. I'll get to that later. For now: just know that he's a nice enough guy who gets way more shit from us than he deserves.

Anyway. I'm getting kind of bored of listening to Kyle slate Butters, because he's getting kind of spiteful with it, which Kyle does sometimes. So, I bring up that whole thing about how the length of your fingers is supposed to correspond to the size of your dick. You ever hear that? You measure from the base of your thumb to the tip of your index finger, and that's how big your limp dick is, right there.

I don't know. It's just this thing I heard. Total bullshit. Blatantly. But I'm always game for a round of it, because my fingers? They go on for miles, man.

Next thing, we're measuring our hands against one another's. I beat the both of them. Because, ladies, my cock is just that awesome. You heard it here first.

Stan takes defeat way gracefully. He shakes one wrist and flicks out his fingers, rolls back his shoulders like he's warming up for a match. Then, he holds one palm up to Kyle with a competitive gleam in his eye and he goes,

"Round two. May the best man win."

It's almost exciting. Like, for real, days in South Park are so fucking dull that I'm practically on the edge of my seat as Kyle reaches one hand out to meet Stan's.

I say something like, "Moment of truth," or something equally gay and Kyle has the barest hint of competitive smirk dancing round his lips as he presses the heel of his hand comfortably against Stan's. He slowly flexes each of his fingers in turn, touching the pads of their fingertips together, one by one, and all the while watching Stan's face through the gap over their joined thumbs.

There's a weird weightless moment of pause where, I swear, my whole mouth goes dry. It's like this stressed, intimate thing and I feel for a crazy second this feeling of having made a mistake, as if I've invited something out which should never have been encouraged to surface.

It's kind of a freak thing to think, huh? I know. It's just what I felt, man. Just what I felt.

But, obviously, like, the world doesn't end or nothing. Things freeze for a moment before Stan leans sideways and tilts his and Kyle's hands together to better inspect them.

"What the fuck?" he squawks and wriggles his fingers, squints accusingly at Kyle, "You're moving it up."

"Dude," Kyle smiles, "I'm not."

Like, it could only happen to these two. I swear it.

There isn't even the barest whisper of difference between them. Their palms fit together like one is a goddamn reflection of the other.

It could almost be a touching moment. Right? So what the hell do I do?

"You're cock brothers," I blurt, like a complete and total fucking gimp, before I realise how that could sound and I look quickly at the forgotten football game like it's the most fascinating thing known to man. Luck of the draw though, as I look at it, fucking _as I look at it_, the game comes suddenly to life and explodes all over with the most awesome fucking touchdown. Like, boom. You know? So, I do what any guy does in that situation and holler like a redneck, all else instantly forgotten. And Stan and Kyle, they know the score. They hear my shout and their heads jerk round to face the screen quick enough to give them whiplash, their matching hands crumpling careless on the couch between them. We're all riveted for the replays and I might not even have remembered this whole thing at all, I might not even be telling you guys about it now, if I hadn't glanced, just totally random down at that couch and seen Stan and Kyle's hands slumped there together. I might never have seen the way that Kyle's fingers had slipped between Stan's with the ease of habit.

It's loose and casual. But, dude. That's hand-holding. And they hadn't even noticed they were doing it.

Normally, I'd be all over shit like that. I'd be ripping the two of them to _shreds _about it. But I had no idea what to do with it this time. I couldn't make jokes about it, because it wasn't fucking funny. All I could think to do is just pretend I hadn't seen it.

And, when I look over again, their hands aren't together anymore, so I think that maybe I imagined it in the first place. Only, really I know that I didn't. Like, what do you do with that kind of knowledge? It sounds like nothing. But, I knew what I saw. And even then, I guess I knew what it meant. I just wasn't quite ready to confront it yet.

It still trips me out a little to think back on, I gotta say.

Damn. Where the hell was I even at before I got on to that bit?

So, the next thing. I guess the next thing is what happened later, when Cartman got home again.

After Stan left, Kyle sank into this random funk. I couldn't shake him out of it, so I just left him to it. I told you those guys get totally weird sometimes without one another. It don't bother me no more, you know? I don't really question it. I just settled myself into an armchair with the sports pages of USA Today to wait it out. I'm way easy like that.

But, yeah. Essentially, what Cartman comes home to is this:

Kyle is sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead in that fixed, unblinking way which shows that his mind is not actually inside his head right now. He has one palm pressed against his temple, as if he's trying to check his temperature. I watch Cartman sit down beside him, scowling and gruff.

"Kyle," he says. Kyle doesn't look at him; he doesn't react at all unless you count the muscles in his jaw tightening. "Is this Stan wedding shit?" Cartman asks, and at that Kyle closes his eyes, sighs a breath.

It pisses Cartman off. I watch him boil over. His shoulders snap straighter. His lip curls.

"Man, fuck this," he grumbles and pushes himself up off the sofa again in an angry surge of motion. Too late, Kyle's eyes come alive. His hand drifts from his forehead and reaches towards Cartman. I watch the movement and think of those fingers linked comfortably between Stan's.

"Dude. Eric," Kyle says and Cartman pauses at the voice, stares back at Kyle's reaching, beckoning fingers. "Come on. Don't be like that."

But like I said, man, it's too late. Cartman's out. He shakes his head, looks at Kyle like Kyle's something he just stepped in.

"You're a weak little pussy Kyle," he sneers, "and I hate you."

Kyle doesn't seem to care as Cartman stalks off. I think he, like, rolls his eyes a little and goes,

"Really? We're doing this? Eric," in a world-weary voice.

He looks at me apologetically, in a 'sorry you have to see this crap' kind of way, before he gets up and disappears off after Cartman to try to settle things down. And I'm just sitting there and making plans for what I'll do if shit kicks off and thinking about how if they have an honest-to-God _fight_, I'll probably have to call the cops, because a blow from one of Cartman's giant fists would surely smash straight through Kyle's face and out the back of his head.

When the phone rings, I nearly jump out of my fucking skin. It keeps on ringing and whatever the two of them are doing, it becomes clear pretty fast that they aren't planning to stop any time soon to answer the goddamn phone. So, I grab up the receiver myself, say 'hello' and there's this pause before I hear Stan, all confused, say,

"Who's that?"

"It's Kenny."

And there's another pause, like Stan's brain's taking its time to catch up, before he goes,

"Oh. Right. Is Kyle there?" he asks. And I'm like,

"No. Er...no. I think he's busy, or-"

Stan hisses out this impatient breath and he sounds kind of unsteady, so I ask if something's up and that just gets him even more on edge and he goes,

"Can you just put him on?"

So, I'm honest. I say,

"Dude. He's with Cartman. I'm not interrupting that."

And Stan goes way quiet. He stays quiet for so long that I have to fill up the gap.

"Do you have a message I can take? Let me write down a message," I say. He goes,

"Fine. Just- Look. Just tell him that Wendy is complaining and that he needs to come pick up his shit from our- from my place. Alright? Get your shit out of my house, Kyle. That's the message."

Then he hangs up. Just like that.

* * *

A/N: This is shit because I can't watch South Park in my new flat as we no longer get Comedy Central. You can't write decent fanfic unless you are immersed in a fandom. And right now...South Park seems to be on the out.

My current obsession is Merlin, which is British and polite and charming and quirky (except the fanfic, which for serious is the filthiest I have ever read for any fandom EVER). And...Merlin unfortunately does not leave me at all in the right frame of mind to write this.

Sad times.

EXTRA NOTE: To Teenage Mouse, who asked me about the quote on my profile - you have PMs disabled, so I couldn't get back to you! But it is from a track called 'Beached' on the soundtrack to the film 'The Beach', which is based on the awesome Alex Garland novel. I'm glad you like it. It's sort of my mantra for life. ^^


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Hi. Er...remember me? Been out of action for a while, but now it's time to finish this sucker.

I've totally lost Kenny's voice in my absence. I've lost him! It's been too long! Kenny come back...

Be warned: my edit on this chapter was BEYOND half-arsed, even for me. Please excuse the disarray.

* * *

In the end, I got most of the real story from Cartman.

Sure. I wanted to ask Kyle about it. Of course I wanted to ask him.

And, like, obviously, I would have done. I already told you; I'm no way shy about shit like that. I would have done it carefully, too. Tactful, you know? You can't underestimate the power of tact. Same as manners. With people like Kyle, manners will get you everywhere.

So, yeah, I would have asked him. But I didn't ever get him alone, see? Because the weekend came and Cartman was thundering around the house for two days solid, slamming doors, rustling through the stock market pages of the paper and shouting at the newsreaders on TV. Kyle was like the eye at the centre of Cartman's storm: calm, stoic and able to pass unharmed through all the danger. I stuck close to him those couple of days. I needed the support. All my old strategies for managing this grown-up version of Cartman felt outdated and shoddy.

I'll be honest: I'm kind of afraid of the guy. I'm not ashamed to admit that. Cartman is smarter than me and bigger than me and meaner than me. What's not to be afraid of? I'm not full on _scared _of him, because death and me...

Well. Let's just say that we have an understanding.

I'm honestly not afraid for my life or my health, though perhaps a smarter man would be. Truth is, I'm afraid of what Cartman represents. It's like he's...and stick with me here, it's about to get heavy...some kind of physical manifestation of all the bad things that everyone has inside of them. That make sense? All those things we try not to face up to because they make us feel like skank. You know the things. _You _know. You feel them just the same as I feel them.

It's like when a kid pulls the wings off of bugs just because he can. Or you know that sense of superiority over the one night stand who was just _so desperate _to touch you. And that little electric spark of satisfaction you get out of saying something spiteful or bitchy or cruel. All that stuff. That's Cartman. That's the Cartman in you. It's in me, it's in you. It's in all of us.

I'm afraid of Cartman because when I sit down with him and look in his eyes, I see all the bits of myself that I try to pretend ain't there. They don't scare him none, you see? He embraces them. He lets them all hang out where people can see. The guy's inside-out, man. The stuff the rest of us aspire to have more of and be better at? That's the stuff Cartman keeps hidden deep inside. And believe me, it's in there somewhere. That's what makes him all the more terrifying; he _chooses _to repress his good side.

Exhibit A, you guys:

The morning after that weird phone call from Stan, while Kyle is off meeting with some editor in Denver, Cartman drives to Stan and Wendy's place to pick up Kyle's stuff. He's all gruff and scowly about it, but, yo. He's doing his boy a real favour. I know the reason he turns down my help and goes alone is because he doesn't want me to see him being all whipped.

Cartman comes back with, like, half a dozen big-ass cardboard boxes. I'm not even kidding. Half a dozen. Full of books and clothes and shit. Life stuff.

You got it. Suddenly makes sense why there's no trace of Kyle at Cartman's place, right? Turns out that all Kyle's shit was shacked up with Stan and Wendy. The plot thickens, hey? I thought so too.

"Dude," I say, helping Cartman to lift the final box out of the car. "When Stan called, I thought he meant one bag. Not all of Kyle's worldly possessions."

Cartman heaves the box away from me, carries it himself. He's like,

"Jews are materialistic fuckers, Kenny. They hoard shit like magpies."

And like, I don't say it out loud, but in my head I'm thinking, 'for materialistic shit, you're taking a hell of a lot of care over it,' because Cartman carries each box delicately, stacks them all carefully atop the thick carpet in the master bedroom, checks that each one is straight and secure on the pile. You see what I'm saying? You don't look out for someone's stuff that way if you don't care about them. No sir.

I know what you're thinking.

It makes me seem like a hypocrite to flap my gums for hours about what a jerkoff Cartman is and then turn around and explain how he ran cute little errands for his live-in lover. Why draw attention to the one tiny crumb of decency in the black hole of this guy's soul, right? Well, here it is: as insane as it sounds, all the bad shit that happened was not Cartman's fault. I wouldn't want to pretend that it was. The man is a dickhead. But the man got screwed. And I won't be the one to say that he deserved it.

Maybe I got a sense of that back then and I felt for the guy. Maybe I just thought it was the best way to finally get some questions answered. I don't even know. But I'm just watching Cartman stack these boxes so careful-like and what I do next is this:

"You hungry? You want to get a sandwich?" I say. "I kind of feel like getting a sandwich," I say. And when Cartman looks up at me I slap on my best grin and add the magic words: "My treat."

We sat right around here, actually. The diner just down the block there. You see it? Past the gas station. Yeah.

Once I loosened Cartman's tongue with a couple of hits of pastrami, this is my opener:

"So. Marriage at twenty-two," I say, all conversational, nothing to suspect. "That's kind of unnecessary, huh?"

And Cartman, he snorts and swallows his mouthful and goes,

"Stan's a fucking hippy, though. He doesn't know how to behave in a socially acceptable way," before taking another bite.

"And Wendy?" I ask.

"Wendy's a goddamn idiot," he says.

I poke at the ice cubes at the bottom of my cup with the straw, to look like I don't really give a shit about the conversation. Eventually, Cartman's like,

"She's making a huge mistake."

I look up from my stirring.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I mean that spending so much time with Stan has retarded her brain. She settles for this shit and she can kiss her career goodbye for a start."

"She's an idiot," he repeats, which seems kind of harsh and I tell him that. He just grins, his same old know-it-all grin that always sat so comfortably on his flabby fat-kid cheeks.

Turns out that they work together. Cartman and Stan's fiancée work in the same fucking building. Didn't I tell you South Park was a small place? If you want a decent job, you either go to Denver or you have about three companies to choose from. This guy we know, Butters, worked with them too. But Wendy and Cartman, they were interns together, Cartman tells me, and afterwards ended up sharing the kind of healthy rivalry which guys like Cartman thrive on. They had offices across the hall from one another. They worked with the same teams, met the same deadlines, and went to the same conferences. Cartman claimed to know more about the workings of Stan and Wendy's relationship than Stan himself did. And what he knew, he assured me, was not pretty.

Check this shit:

Once upon a time there was a pair of childhood sweethearts who were each other's only salvation in a town of insanity and stupidity. Similarly calm and level-headed, they gravitated towards one another like magnets. Once puberty hit, the surety of being the two most conventionally attractive people in their class cemented their relationship for good.

Or so they thought.

Turns out things can get complicated once college gets involved.

See, the girl, she had serious ambition and more than enough smarts to support it. The boy, on the other hand, got into college through a football scholarship and only landed a part-time job because a representative from a local Hollister store was scouting the fresher's fair for people with the 'right look' to work for them.

Factor in long-distance arguments over the phone, out-of-control frat parties, foreign exchange trips and by final year, you're left with a relationship stretched to breaking point, right?

So what do they do?

The girl gives the boy an ultimatum: commitment or bust. She throws herself into her studies, applies for the best internships she can find and waits for him to make up his mind.

The boy tries to ignore it all because ultimatums freak him out. He reaches for his final lifeline: the best friend who has never before failed to make things right.

So, the boy packs a bag, gets on a bus and crosses three states only to find that his best friend is sleeping with Eric motherfucking Cartman. It's a blow.

Bewildered and lost, with nowhere left to turn, he does the only thing he can think of and asks the girl to marry him. She accepts.

When college ends, the boy and girl move back to their hometown. The boy moves in, as long-planned, with his best friend. The girl returns to her family.

Time passes. The girl is a roaring success at work. She loves her job, but begins to worry that she does not love the boy quite as much as the job. Worse still, she begins to suspect that perhaps the boy no longer loves her. They're too different. It's been too long.

But all that is too hard to face up to, so when the boy unexpectedly asks her to move in with him, the girl jumps at the chance to make things right.

Of course, it doesn't make things right. But the girl convinces herself that her jitters are natural and that it will be better if they can just get the thing over with. She convinces the boy that they should hold the wedding as soon as possible so that they can finally live happily ever after.

After Cartman tells me all this, I slump back against the waxy material of the booth seat and stare at him, like, 'what the fuck?'

He smirks and goes, "I know," but I still say it out loud anyway.

"But what the fuck, dude? What are they doing?" I say.

"I know," Cartman repeats.

"You can't get married just because you're afraid of the fucking alternative."

"Yes, Kenny," Cartman says. "You and I are aware of that. But then that is because you and I aren't brain-dead, dirty hippies."

"Motherfucker," I mutter to nobody in particular and Cartman shoves another fistful of fries into his face.

If you're sharper than me, you might have noticed that there was one thing that Cartman skirted around when he was recounting all that jizz: the part Kyle had to play in the whole drama of Stan and Wendy. Cartman, man, he didn't tell me about what happened during Stan's visit to Kyle which made Stan rush home to Wendy and throw himself down on one knee. He didn't explain why, months later, Kyle mysteriously up and moved out of his and Stan's apartment at the drop of a hat.

Didn't notice? No worries, man. I just clued you in. That's more than I got, my friend.

At the time I guess I just assumed that Cartman left things out because they weren't important to the story. But now I realise that Cartman was sketchy with the details because Cartman didn't _know_ the details. And Cartman always has to front about knowing every fucking thing.

You still with me here? It's information overload, I get it. I'm nearly done. There's just a couple more things I gotta explain about before I can tell you about the night it all happened.

After Cartman and me left the diner, we drove back to the house and found a little blue Corsa sat in the driveway behind Kyle's old Focus. Cartman cursed and parked on the street, muttering shit under his breath about trashy European vehicles cluttering up the place.

"Whose car is that?" I asked, jogging a little to keep up with Cartman's sudden burst of speed towards the front door.

"Butters'," he says in this clipped tone and pushes open the door just in time for us to hear Kyle's voice raised in frustration.

"Goddamnit, Butters! You did it on purpose, I _saw_ you do it!"

Okay. _Now_ is the time for you to think about Butters. Remember I mentioned him before?

What? Oh. No, that's just what we call him. It ain't his real name. 'Butters' just suits him, though, you know? His real name is 'Leopold', man, so it's not like that's any better.

The guy's good at heart, but we used to tease the hell out of him back in school on account of him being criminally uncool and just about the biggest goody-two-shoes in town. It was mean of us, but kids are a law unto themselves, you know? Your status at school is so dependent on your being able to keep others down. I'm not saying it's right. I'm just saying it's true.

So, Butters was this sweet kid who had kind of messed up parents and got a hard time for basically his whole school life. But seriously, though, it's not like we had nothing to work with when we bullied him. Butters was...different. You know? I mean, the kid used to dress up and pretend to be a super villain for Christ's sake. He always had a dark side in him just aching to get out.

Butters stopped being such a pushover once we hit high school, which leads me nicely to the most important thing that you all need to know about Butters: since high school, he has had a crush on Eric Cartman as big as a motherfucking mountain.

I don't even know you guys. People are fucking sick, dude.

Anyway. The point? Butters always dug Cartman, and because Butters always dug Cartman, Butters had lately grown to hate my boy Kyle with the heat of a thousand suns.

And the last thing you want in a small-ass town like South Park is for the local super villain to be hating on you.

When me and Cartman open the front door we find Kyle with one fist clenched in Butters' shirt, his face is all twisted up in anger. Butters, he's got both hands on Kyle's wrist, trying to pull free. The table beside them is covered with important-looking papers and a big-ass puddle of coffee, which is dripping slowly off the table's edge like blood in a low-budget horror movie.

Like, it doesn't take a genius to work out the details.

I've barely inched my way inside the door before Cartman slams it hard enough to shake the whole house. I can't stop myself from jumping at the shock of the sound. Kyle and Butters both freeze where they stand.

"What the shit do you ass-rammers think you're doing?" Cartman barks at them and I can practically see the fucking steam shooting out his ears.

Butters, he looks all sweetly contrite. He says "Hi, Eric," all meek and shit, at the same time as Kyle snaps at Cartman, angry as hell,

"Don't you fucking shout at me, dickwad."

He doesn't even let go of Butters' shirt until Cartman marches forwards and wrenches them apart.

"Look what he did!" Kyle bellows, hurling one arm out in the most melodramatic pointing gesture an arm can possibly rock. "Those are important fucking notes! Goddamnit, I _need _those notes! That's hours of fucking work right there!"

Cartman looks at the papers. Then he looks at Butters. Then he looks back at Kyle, who's wild-eyed and breathing rough. And Cartman goes,

"Easy, Jew. Don't give yourself a hernia. It was an accident."

Kyle's nostrils flare. I watch a muscle in his jaw twitch as he clenches his teeth and grinds out,

"Bullshit. He did it on purpose. I watched him."

Butters, he steps forwards, being careful to remain just behind Cartman and he says,

"Gee, Kyle. I'm awful sorry. I didn't mean to. I just feel terrible now. Were they really important for your work? I'm real sorry."

Cartman gives Kyle this patronising look which says "See?" and repeats,

"There. It was an accident. I know it's in your nature as a Jew to think that every fucking person is out to persecute you, Kyle, but one of these days you're just going to have to face up to the fact that isn't true."

Cartman always had a special way with anti-Semitic words, but this time, I'm almost ready to agree with him, right? That is, until I catch sight of Butters watching Kyle from around Cartman's shoulder. And the little shit, he looks Kyle right in the eye and he smirks like a cat who's got the cream.

I know that Kyle's about to lunge at Butters before he does it – I see his muscles tense ready - and at the sight of that smirk I almost let it happen. But I don't. I catch Kyle around the waist as he lurches forwards and throw my weight to haul him away with the practice of having broken up too many bar brawls to count.

"Ey! Jew! Have you lost your goddamn mind?" I hear Cartman shouting, as Kyle struggles against me.

I'm beginning to lose my hold on him and can damn near see Butters' life flashing before my eyes, when Cartman intervenes, catching Kyle by the shoulders and helping me to force him down into a dining chair.

"I'm going to fucking kick his ass this time," Kyle spits. The weight of Cartman's giant hands keep him anchored to the chair, though, until eventually he stills and his breathing goes quiet again.

Didn't I totally say that Stan and Kyle get fucked up when they spend too much time apart? This is exactly the shit I mean.

I let go of Kyle then, squeezing his elbow as I do to show that I'm on his side, but Cartman, he stays put and looks at Kyle with steely eyes.

"Got a hold of yourself now, fag?" Cartman asks.

I'm all ready to intercept another lunge at that, but Kyle doesn't do anything but nod solemnly. He doesn't even look at Butters, who is hovering nearby, looking kind of shaken. He looks pale now, uncertain.

"Kyle. I really- I- I'm sorry," he says and I see that he means it this time. He looks to Cartman. "I just dropped by to ask you about some statistics. But it doesn't matter. It can wait until another time," he says.

Cartman exhales heavily. He hasn't taken his eyes off of Kyle and is still holding him by the shoulders. Kyle shifts in his grasp and looks up through his eyelashes in a way that I guess usually earns him forgiveness.

"Wendy called and invited us over for drinks tonight as a thank you for getting rid of the boxes," he says. He looks calm, but he sounds numb. "I didn't know what to say. So I said we'd go."

"We will go. You go ahead with Kenny. I'll follow you after I set this right." Cartman says, nodding towards Butters or the coffee or whatever. Then he straightens up, pulls his car keys out of his pocket and offers them to Kyle. Kyle glances at Butters before getting up, taking the keys.

"Alright," he says quietly. And then? Man, he catches Cartman by the back of the neck and really goes to town on a kiss that would make a porn star blush. There's no love in it. Even I can see it's done to make a point, but it still leaves Butters pink-cheeked and scowling, just like Kyle intended it to.

Kyle and I don't say a whole lot to one another on the short drive to Stan's apartment. As I'm belting up, back in the passenger seat of the big, black Cartman-mobile with Kyle at the helm, I'm like,

"Dude. That was way intense."

But Kyle, he ain't in the conversational mood. He's all,

"Butters can fucking have him if he wants him that bad."

So then I'm like,

"And where would that leave you, dude?"

He stares straight ahead, through the towering windscreen and shrugs his shoulders in a half-assed kind of way. He says,

"Well. Homeless, I guess."

I didn't have no idea what I was supposed to say after that. It ain't usual for Kyle to behave that way, see? This wasn't the Kyle I had known in high school. Gone was the Kyle of the skinny jeans and Converse who sliced his way through life with razor blade wit. The Kyle in his place had a temper as short as a circus midget. He wore sweats all day and Eric Cartman's motherfucking T-shirts.

So, I don't say anything the whole drive over to Stan's. I don't say a single goddamn thing until we're parked outside the apartment building under the spotlight glow of a streetlamp. Then, as Kyle switches off the ignition, I can't stop myself asking him.

"Dude. Are you happy?" I say.

The car's interior light fades slowly down. Kyle sits there with one hand on the door handle. Eventually, he turns to me and says,

"Who's happy, Kenny? Who the hell actually is happy? You show me someone who is."

I think of the warm concrete sidewalks of my block in California. I think of the blue skies and of the balmy starlit nights when I work the door of the bar. I think of my little apartment, tucked up on the top floor of my building with its sliding balcony doors and its refrigerator full of Tupperware. I think of all this and then I look Kyle dead in the eyes and I say, real simple,

"I am."

Kyle keeps quiet. His eyebrows pull together some and I realise that now he's the one who doesn't know what to say next. I guess maybe because I can see that he's already down, my mouth runs away with itself and decides to just keep kicking.

"And what about Stan?" I say, all out of nowhere.

Kyle looks at me sharply.

"What?" he snaps and I can see him trying to work me out through his narrowed eyes. I stand my ground and try to stare him down.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.

I still don't respond and I guess he don't like what he can read in my face, because he opens the car door then and climbs out. He turns back and peers back through the door at me.

"Kenny, sometimes I don't know why the hell we're friends," he says, before he slams the car door hard.

Okay. We're nearly there, now. For real. Let me race through this:

Wendy greets us warmly on Stan's doorstep. At least, she greets Kyle warmly, with a hug, kisses to both his cheeks and the declaration,

"I'm so glad you're here. I need your help. My wedding is at stake."

Kyle returns the hug but screws his face up at her words.

"Is this about dresses?" he asks.

"No. Flowers," Wendy says. "You see, the florist that was supplying the flowers for the wedding burned down two days ago."

I'm like, "Burned down?"

"_Burned down_," Wendy repeats. "Can you believe that? Honestly, I don't know what the hell is wrong with this town."

"Shit," I say.

"Shit is right. Obviously, they're not really in a position to be supplying us anymore so I now have a matter of days to find a new florist."

Kyle shrugs.

"Shouldn't be too hard. There must be places in Denver who'd deliver out here."

"Right. But, if I'm going to all that trouble then I'm damn well going to have the flowers that I want. I left Stan in charge of it before. I said orchids, but he ordered lilies because lilies are cheaper, but I hate lilies because they stink and their pollen _stains_ things. It's like, I'm wearing a _white dress_, Stan. Come on," Wendy says, mouth moving at top speed. She reaches out and takes both of Kyle's hands in hers.

"I need you to plant the idea in his mind that orchids are the only sensible choice for our wedding," she says, and when Kyle looks exasperated and starts to open his mouth to disagree, she smiles winsomely, presses his hands harder and says,

"Kyle. Come on. You know that he'd marry _you_ if he could. You know he would. You have the power. I trust you, sweetie. I leave my flowers in your capable hands."

Too often my redneck blood gets the better of me and I just _say _these things, so I go,

"I'd like to get your flowers in _my_ hands, Wendy," with a wink and a grin.

Wendy stares at me for a moment, like she's only just noticed I'm standing there. Then, she turns to the side table by the door, picks up this potted spider plant that's sitting there, and hands it to me.

"That should keep you busy until you meet the whore of your dreams, Kenny," she says sweetly.

I said she was sharp, right?

Yeah. As a tack.

"My cousins are staying with us, but my parents have taken them out for dinner, so we finally have some space to breathe," Wendy says, nodding at the still inflated air mattress which is leaning against the wall of the lounge. "I don't know where Stan is," she adds. "He went to take a shower ages ago. Why don't you go hunt him down while I open some wine?"

We found Stan in a room past the bathroom. His hair was still wet. He had a towel draped around his neck to catch the drips. The room he was standing in was dark. It had bare walls, bare shelves.

Kyle led me straight there. He pushed open the door, flicked on the light and said, "What are you doing in here?" to jolt Stan out of whatever trance he was in.

Right away, I figured that the place was so bare because everything that belonged in it was stacked in boxes in Cartman's house. This was Kyle's room.

Here's how it goes down:

Stan turns around. He don't notice me straight away so he's all lit up to see Kyle. He goes,

"Hi," and beams like fog lights before he catches sight of me and his smile turns normal.

And Kyle grins a little and shakes his head. He says, "Hi. Dude, what are you standing here in the dark for?"

Stan clears his throat.

"I was just trying to work out if we can fit the big bookcase in here. There's not really space for it in the lounge."

I look around at the vast expanse of bare walls. I'm like,

"Call me crazy, but something tells me it's gonna fit in here, dude."

"Yeah," Stan says. "It seems really empty, doesn't it?"

There's a pause. Then Kyle goes,

"Wendy told me about the florist, dude. That sucks," all conversational.

Stan's like, "What? Oh. Yeah. Fucking lame, man," then, "Shit. I still have to sort that out." He looks at his bare wrist for a watch that's been left in the bathroom.

Kyle shrugs.

"We can Google it. There'll be loads of places. What flowers are you getting?"

It's so smooth and subtle, you guys. I'd never know that he'd been commissioned, if I hadn't heard Wendy place the order with my own ears. Kyle can talk his way out of and _into_ anything. It's a skill. But, man, with Stan? Kyle doesn't even need to break a sweat.

"Oh. Lilies? I think that's what Wendy wanted," Stan says. And Kyle's all,

"Lilies are funeral flowers, dude."

Stan goes, "Shit. Are they?"

"Yeah. You should get orchids, man. Orchids are hot," Kyle says.

"Expensive, though."

Kyle shrugs.

"You can get smaller bunches, then. That's classier anyway. Huge bunches of flowers are totally trashy, dude. Stick with small bunches."

Kyle's drifted casually closer to him while they've been talking, under the pretence of staring around at the bare walls. Now, he reaches out and squeezes Stan's upper arm, just below the shoulder, just shy of a manly shoulder squeeze. Only a gay guy can get away with a touch like that.

"Trust me. Get orchids," Kyle says, letting go of Stan's arm.

It's not a surprise when Stan nods instantly. He has the look of a swaying cobra, charmed into obedience. If Kyle had asked for the fucking moon right now, he'd probably end up getting it.

"Okay," Stan says. Kyle doesn't even bother to look pleased with himself. Instead he goes, totally in-character,

"Get your laptop. We'll find somewhere."

I lingered behind after they left the room. Something in there had caught my eye.

There was a photograph still tucked into the frame of the mirror, see? Of Stan and Kyle together. It was from the summer before they both left for college, at this wild barbeque thing a guy in our class threw. It was a stellar night. Some fun shit went down. So, I set down my spider plant on top of the hollow chest of drawers and I pulled the photo out of the mirror frame. I remembered the exact moment this photo was taken. It had been abnormally warm that night and our drunken stumblings through the long grasses had kicked up clouds of fireflies. Two of the flies had found their way into Kyle's empty beer bottle and were flickering there like the filament in a bulb. Kyle had been holding up the bottle to the camera lens with a posed grin on his face. At the last moment before the flash, Stan had come crashing out of the darkness. He'd thrown one arm tight around Kyle to make sure they were both squeezed into the shot, pressed cheek to cheek. He'd knocked his own just-opened and still foaming beer bottle against the bottle in Kyle's hand. Kyle's camera grin had split open into a real smile just as the shot was taken.

I remembered it so well because I had been on the other end of the camera, taking it.

So, I'm staring at this picture, right? And I can hear Kyle's voice in my head saying 'Who the hell actually is happy? You show me someone who is.' And it's like something just drops into place in my mind. Like, 'clunk'. It's there.

Here's what I do. I tuck the picture back into the mirror and I go back to have drinks with my friends. And I watch.

Specifically, I watch Stan.

I watch him lean half out of his seat beside Wendy so that he can talk to Kyle. I watch how his attention never wavers. I watch him fill in the gaps in Kyle's sentences. I watch him loose-limbed and relaxed and smiling. And I get even more certain.

At the end of the night, when we're all saying goodbye, I tug Stan to one side. He's still looking at Kyle, just like he has been all night, when I hook one arm around his neck and lean close.

"Dude, you could have him in a heartbeat," I whisper, right against his ear where none of the others can hear me say it.

He jerked away from me like my breath had burned him and I knew I was right, then. The fear in Stan's eyes told me everything I needed to know. He wasn't afraid of what I was implying. Stan was afraid because someone had found him out.

* * *

A/N: Why can't I ever just make things short? Two more chapters and we should be done. Here's hoping I make it through them. This is totally not my best work, but I'm really just trying to not leave this unfinished rather than make sure that it's a masterpiece.


	6. Chapter 6

I guess I expected Stan to have something to say to me after that. After all, you drop a bomb like that on a dude and you gotta be prepared for the retribution. So, I waited for him to call. I waited for him to turn up at the door with gritted teeth and a menacing "we need to talk." But I got nothing.

I spent the next two days dicking around my hometown while Cartman was in the office and Kyle was sitting through long editorial meetings in Denver. I called in on my parents and helped my dad put their kitchen door back on its hinges. I phoned my brother Kev repeatedly, trying to check up on things at the bar, but I could never get a hold of him. Kev's such a waster, man. He owes me his fucking balls for all the work I do on his behalf.

Mostly, though, I just hung around Cartman's house, watching TV and hiding out from the Colorado cold. That's what I was doing the day before it all kicked off. I was sat on the couch with my feet up and the sports pages on my lap when Cartman got in. I'd quickly learnt to distinguish the noise of Cartman coming home from the sound of Kyle. Cartman's feet were thunderous on the path, his key brisk and heavy in the lock. Kyle's key was a bad copy and it would stick sometimes. So he had to turn it real gentle and nudge the door with one shoulder.

But Cartman was talking to someone today. I could hear him through the door, the sound of laughter above the rattling of the lock. He came in with Wendy, and they stood in the porch, stamping the snow from their feet. Cartman, he marches across the room, shoves my feet off of the coffee table and snatches up this plastic folder of spreadsheets from the surface without so much as a hello. The asshole. He hands the folder to Wendy.

He's all,

"Butters said he'd get the rest of the figures to you by tomorrow."

And Wendy, she 'mm-hmm's, flicks through the sheets with an analytical eye. The lamplight glints off of the rock on her finger.

"I think I'm going to go ahead and get started on these tonight, anyway," she says. Cartman snorts at her, gives her the same fake-dismissive look of secret admiration I see him give Kyle all the time.

"You're getting married in like, a minute, aren't you? Shouldn't you be running around getting your bride on? Doing all that shit in time for the big hippy day?" he asks.

"What shit?" Wendy says.

And Cartman goes,

"How the hell should I know? Like getting your nails done or whatever women do."

Wendy stares at him, nonplussed as hell. She's like,

"Please. You're more likely to spend an evening getting your nails done than I am and you know it. So let's not play that misogynist game, thanks." She waves the folder pointedly at Cartman, pulls the belt of her coat tighter with one hand.

"I'll email you the headline figures later on," she says, then leans round Cartman's mountainous bulk, flashes me a pearly smile.

"Bye, Kenny."

I wave to her and Cartman scowls over his shoulder at me, scowls like I done wrong by even existing. He shows Wendy out. When he turns to me, he goes,

"Jew not back yet?"

And when I'm like, "Guess not," he gets huffy, pulls a City Wok menu out of the drawer of a side table.

"I'm ordering takeout," he says. "And I'm getting everything with pork."

I let him stomp his way into the kitchen, ignore his muttering and scowling. That shit just washes over me with Cartman. I've known him too long for it to have any other effect.

Beneath the folder Cartman moved, there's a pile of papers, coffee-stained and covered in Kyle's sharp-angled writing. I recognise them as the ones Kyle was prepared to rip off Butters' balls over. Now, I was raised rough, like a feral cat, which makes a guy curious. So, as Cartman clattered around in the kitchen banging cupboards and running the tap, I couldn't resist picking up the top sheet of Kyle's notes and taking a look at what all the drama had been about.

Check this out:

'_all makes it hard to believe that there can be a future for the 'wing and a prayer' systems of banking and investment which characterized the world's financial systems prior to the recent recession,' _Kyle writes.

'_It was amidst feverish promises of reform that the bail-out packages were initially drawn up. However, months later, the very same systems which provoked the collapse are creeping slowly back into place without, many would argue, a single noticeable reform. "In order to re-establish order," Orson claims, "it is imperative that lending and borrowing once more become attractive." Indeed the only way out of recession, Orson would have us believe, is to pick up right where we left off and behave as if nothing at all has changed. In many ways, he is right. Yet it would be foolish to dismiss our niggling doubts about this unapologetically cyclical method of action. _

_It seems that striving for an eternal life on the 'never-never' has become an unshakeable tenant of capitalist society, so much so that ignoring inevitable risks is now routine practice. Our flirtation with the invisible finites of credit is a compulsion. It is an addiction. And if all our combined years of following celebrity rehab stories on E! have taught us anything, it is that when addiction does not end in reform it can only end in one other way.' _

Later that night, Kyle gets home from his meeting, flicking his key all graceful in the lock, pressing his shoulder against the door. He looks drained and haggard. He heads straight for the coffee-stained papers, picks them up and tears them into pieces right in front of me.

"They want a different angle," Kyle says when I stare at him.

He goes to bed then, without saying anything to either of us, so I don't get to speak to him about it.

In fact, I only get to speak to Kyle alone one time over the whole of those two days. It's the night after he tore up those notes, the night before this party thing of Stan and Wendy's. I'm all tucked up in bed, when I suddenly open my eyes from sleep, abrupt, you know? Like something's woken me. I'm a pretty light sleeper. I'm always plagued by the feeling that in any second I might have to dodge something real fast. A lot of mishaps tend to happen to me. Lot of mishaps. So I sleep light.

But there's nothing weird about the room. There are no dark shapes, no strange noises. Nothing out of the ordinary. So, like, I guess that some sound from outside or something must have disturbed me and decide that I'll just get up and piss and come back to bed.

As I open my door, though, I do hear something: the soft clink of glass against glass from the lounge.

Kyle looks up at me as I come in. He's standing beside Cartman's decanter, the crystal stopper still held in his hand.

"Did I wake you?" he asks. I shake my head.

"Nah. Couldn't sleep," I say, which is a lie, but there's nothing that gets someone to open up more than the feeling of shared misfortune. Kyle buys it. He pulls a sympathetic face.

"Me neither. You want a drink?"

I let him pour me a glass of the scotch, knowing that since it's Cartman's it'll at least be the good stuff.

We sit together on the edge of the sofa, ice rattling in our glasses.

"How come you can't sleep?" Kyle asks me, concerned, head cocked to one side.

I take a sip of my scotch, pretending to consider the question.

"Thinking too much," I say, "About Stan. About the wedding. I'm thinking too hard, you know? It keeps making things add up wrong in my mind."

I look at Kyle expectantly but he don't say nothing. He just clams up the harder, like the last time he did when I hit too close to home. I'm struck right then with the feeling I get when I'm talking to Kev sometimes. When Kev's done some dickheaded thing and is being sullen as shit about facing up to it and I just have to drop the nice act and fucking bust his ass to make things right again. You can't play good cop when you're dealing with stubborn guys, man. It won't get you nowhere. And, seriously, Kyle is as stubborn as they come. Stubborn as a fucking mule.

So, I'm like,

"Kyle," all serious, "can I ask you something? Like, frankly?"

Kyle doesn't agree. But he looks at me.

"Are you having an affair with Stan?" I ask him, before I can lose my nerve.

Even as the words are coming out of my mouth, they sound stupid. It doesn't surprise me when Kyle snorts at and cracks a smile. I start to smile along, ready to raise my hands and be all apologetic, all "Alright, dude. I know it sounds crazy, but I just had to ask."

But Kyle's smile doesn't last all that long. When I look at him again, he's draining the rest of the scotch out of his glass with his head tipped back.

"You've got that definition wrong, man," Kyle says, and wipes the scotch from his lips with the back of one hand. "For it to be an affair, one of the people has to be married. how I understand it. It wouldn't be an affair until Stan was married. That's Also, dude, I think that 'affair' implies, like, a continued relationship. Something ongoing."

Kyle sets his glass down on the coffee table and stands up. I stare at him.

"So," I start.

"So, no, Kenny. I am not having an affair with Stan," Kyle says, his smile twisting over the word 'affair'.

"Goodnight," he says, and reaches down to squeeze my shoulder before he goes. It's a sweet gesture, kind of grateful.

I'm almost convinced.

See, the reason I'm telling you all this is because I'm worried that I might have been giving you the wrong impression about my boy Kyle. I'm talking like you know the guy, like you grew up with him too. And that ain't true. You don't know him from Adam. What I want to make you understand is this: Kyle ain't mean at heart. I guess from all the crap I've been telling you, it might seem that Kyle is kind of an asswipe. He's not. Kyle is sweet as anything, believe me. He's sweet and smart and sympathetic and he cares about shit. He cares about people, man. He'd care about your sorry ass if you were in trouble. He's like that. Always trying to help out, solve problems.

Cartman makes him mean, though. Being away from Stan makes him mean. And that's part of why I did what I did.

There's this theorem which is like, connected to the idea of the butterfly effect, called the theorem of 'recurrence'. It was dreamt up by this guy Poincaré, French guy. This theory states that "certain systems will, after a sufficiently long time, return to a state very close to the initial state".

I know this because I got Wiki with it and looked the bitch up.

I don't know. I have this thing where I latch onto an idea and then want to find out as much about it as I can until I get satisfied. I tell you what, if school had all been about learning things for the sake of learning stuff instead of to pass tests, well shit. I'd have aced every fucking class.

But, recurrence. Recurrence is "the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions."

I'm not going to even pretend that I understand advanced mathematics or physics or whatever the hell subject theories like this belong to, but here's how I understand it:

Certain things are meant to be a certain way. Those things know how they're meant to be, and they're going to set about trying to get that way. If they need to enlist somebody else's help to achieve that, so be it, but they're going to keep on creeping and clawing and pushing until eventually they end up right where they should be.

See, I don't think of what I did as interference. I think of it as me helping to return things to their natural order.

Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you think I did wrong. I don't care. I'd do it all again, starting with what I said to Stan at his and Wendy's apartment.

And...I guess now there's nothing left to do but tell you about the night it all happened.

Stan and Wendy, they were having this formal-ass reception after the wedding. The kind of reception with white linen and crystal glasses and a classy jazz band. It was supposed to be a party for the benefit of the families, with everyone on their best behaviour. Completely different to the shit we were raised on as kids. We grew up together on a diet of filthy house parties where thermostats were cranked up until the windows fogged, the carpets reeked of spilt beer and Blink 182 pounded through the walls. A South Park wedding for two members of our old crew would have been nothing without that mess. Even Wendy knew as much. So what she and Stan had agreed to do was to have this pre-wedding party with dancing and darkness – the old vibe – the Friday before the wedding. It would give them a chance for one last shout, bring back all the old memories. It would allow people like me, people like Wendy's friend Bebe (girl drinks like a sailor), who couldn't be relied on to behave appropriately at a classy do, to get all involved. Seems like a sweet idea, right?

Between you and me, I think maybe they planned it that way so that they'd have an emergency exit to the whole marriage fiasco, should they need to make use of it. After all, anything can happen at a party like that. Anything can happen and you wouldn't be held responsible. There are so many things that could take the blame for you.

I guess it won't surprise you that this party was where everything went down. And let me tell you, a lot of shit went down. Man, we never even made it to the wedding and classy reception. The hot mess of the South Park rager did for Stan and Wendy's big day before it even got off the ground.

My memories of this night are kind of hazy, seeing as I was drunk for most of it and quit breathing for the rest of it, but I'll do my best for you guys. Just warning you that things might get kind of choppy.

Cartman and Kyle and I arrived early, when things were just warming up, but there were already empty margarita glasses on the tables and Wendy was just that bit too enthusiastic in the hugs she greeted us with.

She was dressed in black jeans which hugged her ass and the kind of sheer, ruffled shirt which hits just right, somewhere between sexy and prim. She looked awesome. Wendy's a hottie, you guys. Just because she was Stan's girlfriend doesn't mean I wasn't going to notice that shit.

Stan's lurking near the bar when we walk in. When he comes over, I try to catch his eye, get some acknowledgement, but he deliberately avoids looking at me. He doesn't hug any of us.

"Come on. You have to get a drink," Wendy orders, after an awkward moment where she looks at Stan expectantly but gets nothing back. She smiles real big and latches onto Cartman's arm with one hand, bats encouragingly at me with the other. "Bebe's dying to see _you_, Kenny," she says, teasing.

I have a bit of bad history with most of the girls in our old group from school. No point lying about it. What can I say? It was a dull town and picking up women was just about the only thing I didn't suck at back then. So I did a lot of it.

I smile back at Wendy. I'm like, "Oh really? She's _dying _for it is she?" and start to follow Wendy's beckoning hand towards the bar. Out of the corner of my eye I see Stan turn to Kyle all stilted, with his hands shoved in his pockets.

"I called the florist," Stan says.

And Kyle stares at him blankly.

"What?" he says.

"You know, I," Stan begins. Swallows. Begins again. "I did that."

It's painful to watch. Kyle's like,

"Oh. Right." Then, staring after the rest of us, "So shall we get a drink?"

I don't hear Stan agree, but next I know they're standing either side of me as we toss back tequila slammers at the bar. They stay either side of me as we all cram into a booth and make it through a couple of jugs of margaritas before starting in on rounds of tall, deadly long island iced teas.

You ever drink those? Man, long island iced teas are the quickest way to send a night like that spiralling out of control. They're just too easy to lose track of.

Before I know it, I've got that thudding in my brain which lets me know that the liquor's starting to set in. Bebe's shoulders are warm under my arm and she licks the salt off of my hand instead of hers when we toss back our next tequila. Kyle and Butters have been sniping at one another for most of the night, but now Kyle's laughing and loose and presses a screwed up smile against my neck when I pass him another drink across the table. Then, before I know it, Wendy has tugged Bebe away from me so that they can dance, Butters has trailed after Cartman to the bar and Kyle is sliding out of the booth to go to the bathroom. It takes me a moment to register that I'm suddenly sitting alone with Stan and he's staring at me with this twitchy look in his eyes.

"Kenny," he blurts, but he can't get any further.

I take a chance.

"Dude, it's okay," I say, quiet, reassuring, convincing. "Kyle's already told me everything."

The relief flows through Stan in a near-visible wave. He scoots close then and starts speaking fast, like he's never had the opportunity to discuss this with anyone before, which I guess he probably hasn't. I have to catch his bottle of beer as he nearly knocks it off the tabletop in his agitation.

"It was a mistake, Kenny," he says, rushed. "Really. It was such a mistake. Only, only sometimes I don't know. Sometimes it doesn't feel at all like a mistake. Sometimes it feels like it was the only thing that I've ever done fucking right."

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say.

Turns out I don't have to say anything because that's when Kyle comes back. He slides automatically into the seat next to Stan, instead of the one beside me, notices his mistake too late, and all of us go tense.

"I," Kyle says, looking around a little wildly, his gaze settling on Cartman, who is loading a tray with glasses at the bar. "I'd better go help," Kyle mutters and starts to move, but Stan catches his arm, holding fast, and everything feels panicked and frozen for a moment, like something's about to explode. It's so similar to what I saw between them at Stan's bachelor party that I'm caught off guard by a feeling of déjà vu. The moment feels out of place and I can tell that the memories surfacing from his conversation with me are driving Stan now, making him forget where we are, how conspicuous this all is.

"Dudes. This. You gotta stop this," I say, surprising even myself by reaching over, tugging Stan's hand firmly off of Kyle's arm, keeping hold of it so that it can't find its way back there again. "Leave it, man," I add when Stan looks at me, indignant. I catch the tail end of Kyle's grateful look as he slides out of the booth once more, heading for the bar.

"Stan. I feel like a smoke. Let's go," I say, jerking my head towards the exit. He nods automatically, because I'm using my no-nonsense business voice. Getting drunk guys to obey you is the speciality of any bar manager worth his salt.

I don't smoke no more. Cali makes it too hard for you and I can't be bothered to put in the effort to keep the habit going out there. But I lead Stan outside anyway, look at him all stern and fold my arms.

"I lied," I say. "Kyle didn't tell me anything. So talk."

Stan's still holding his beer bottle loose in one hand. He stares at me for a moment then sighs, dragging the other hand back and forth roughly over his hair. He sinks down into a crouch, setting the bottle on the empty ground then staying down there, clutching at his head.

I squat beside him and he looks at me. He's like,

"You don't know anything?"

And I'm all,

"I only know what I see. But that's plenty. You want to fill in the gaps for me?"

Stan does.

You ready for some more narrative? Alright. Let's get it on.

That night with the fireflies, Stan tells me. He guesses it all starts then. How it starts is that in the near-pitch darkness and the abnormally warm summer air, blind drunk but not quite drunk enough for it to be a decent excuse, Stan kisses Kyle. They're far enough away from the torchlight and headlamps that nobody can see it happening. It is not a short kiss. It is damp and hot and laughing, like they're joking, though they both know that they're not. When an engine guns and they hear me shout into the darkness, calling for them, the noise shocks them into returning to the group. They barely remember to stop holding hands before they hit the glare of the headlamps. Kyle only just twists his fingers free in time, Stan recalls.

At college, Stan says, he feels Kyle's absence more keenly than he'd ever dared to imagine he might. He feels clumsy, awkward, like he's learning to walk on a prosthetic leg, like the usual patterns don't quite fit anymore and he needs to readjust every mundane function of his life to accommodate that.

Eventually, Stan supposes, he gets used to it. He makes new friends. After a while he is able to stop staring at Kyle's name in his phone, thumb hovering over the button, wondering whether he's been calling too much. After a while, he stops it all.

This is perhaps why he is so unprepared for the angry rush of jealousy he is hit with when he goes to visit Kyle one day and finds him with Cartman. The asshole is smirking and abrasive as ever and Kyle is far too comfortable in his company. Stan doesn't remember exactly what happens. He knows that he flipped out; he remembers the shouting. He knows that he behaved like a child: petty, spiteful and dramatic. He knows that he got straight back on a coach and headed to Wendy's, calling her on her ultimatum while his blood was still pounding hot with anger.

By the time Kyle calls him a week later to apologise for a fight that wasn't even his fault in the first place, Stan is calm again. And he feels sick.

The papers have already been signed, so he and Kyle move into their apartment a few weeks afterwards, tentatively. They walk on eggshells around each other. Kyle never brings Cartman home, he always goes to Cartman's place instead. When Wendy stays the night, Kyle usually stays out.

But slowly, Stan says, it's like all that distancing goes into reverse. He and Kyle grow close again. They fall into household patterns: eating breakfast together, watching TV side by side at night. Stan finds himself making up excuses as to why Wendy can't come over. He invents reasons for Kyle te stay home instead of going to Cartman's (like 'the ice is really bad out there tonight, dude' or 'I think something's up with the shower faucet, we should probably try to fix it before it floods the place').

They touch each other all the time. It takes Stan far too long to recognise it as flirting.

In fact, it probably takes him until the night he comes home from a business dinner, still not quite drunk enough for it to be an excuse, and he and Kyle have sex ("like _actual sex_, Kenny, what the fuck?") on their shared sofa for to Stan recognise any of it for what it really is.

Afterwards, they can't look each other in the eye. Stan won't talk about it. He manages to freak out so spectacularly that Kyle goes to stay at Cartman's for two days to let Stan calm down. And by the time Kyle gets back, Stan has asked Wendy to move in with him in a panic of guilt. So, Kyle moves out for good.

Thing have been impossible ever since.

"And that's pretty much...where we stand now," Stan says morosely. He brushes some fragments of ice off of the neck of his beer bottle and takes a sullen swig. We're still crouched on the sidewalk, thigh muscles straining, me shivering in the cold and wishing that I really did have a goddamn cigarette. I'm totally proud of how calm I stay, even without one.

"Dude," I say, eventually, "Do you really think you should be, like, actually _marrying_ Wendy, then?" Which, like, I think is a pretty sensible thing to ask, you know? But Stan, he just looks at me like I'm some retarded child who doesn't understand reality. He claps me heavily on the shoulder then uses the grip to push himself up to standing. He has to catch himself against the wall when his feet slip on the ice, but when you've spent years navigating the frozen death-traps that are South Park's sidewalks, it takes more than a few drinks to have you crashing down on your ass. Stan stays on his feet. I shove my palms against my thighs and stand up to face him.

"Kenny," Stan says, smiling tipsily and pointing the neck of his bottle at me, "that is exactly my point."

Stan downs the rest of his beer and throws the empty bottle into the road before he heads back inside. I watch the slow arc of it through the air and listen to the crunch of the glass exploding on the asphalt. It's not a good sign. Stan only gets reckless like that when he's about to start full-on, kamikaze drinking. Stan, he's a good-looking guy. But, man. When Stan's past that limit, _his_ limit, now that sure as hell ain't a pretty sight.

I suck in a breath of freezing air as hard as I can, imagining that I can taste tar in it and I follow Stan inside, ready to perform whatever crisis management is necessary.

It's kind of okay, though. For a while, you know? Stan almost seems to be behaving himself. He's drinking hard and drinking fast, but he doesn't sit near Kyle, or touch Kyle or even talk to Kyle. He just strikes up conversation with some of the guys we knew from school, laughing and charming and easy as Stan always was.

Kyle seems likewise safe, tucked in the corner of the booth with Cartman and our friend Token. He's got his head cocked to one side as he listens to Token speak, which means that it's highbrow talk. It looks like the kind of conversation that can keep Kyle busy for hours.

It's all a little too easy. I guess that should have tipped me off.

I might have done a better job of supervising them, though, if Bebe hadn't distracted me by dragging me onto the dance floor, her smile gleaming with promise.

In the end, I'm so busy grinding against her to Ke$ha that I don't even fucking notice when Kyle and Stan both disappear from the room.

* * *

A/N: I'm hoping this will just take one (or two...) more chapter(s...) to finish. Thank you for sticking with it this far!


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